After two days with over 1200 people at Ambassadeur and Rigoletto, the SIME Awards finally announced the winners of the two categories SIME Rising Star of the North and SIME Grand Prize, at Café Opera in Stockholm. From the 36 nominated Nordic companies, only one could be the winner, the title went to Spotify and the prestigious Grand Prize crowned Apple iPhone as the winner.

SIME Grand Prize

SIME’s award for the big Nordic company, who best made use of digitals strategies; the award went to Apple iPhone.

The winner changed not only the way we think about a mobile device but also challenged an entire industry. Mobile users worldwide got a new friend that brought ‘fun’ and ‘usefulness’ to life in everyday situations. The industry got a wake-up call that challenged the landscape for good by giving power to the user and business to the developers. The impact is visible by looking at the number of application-stores and look-alike devices launched by the ‘ole’ players in the industry.

SIME Rising Star of the North

For this year’s new category, the SIME jury handpicked 36 promising, young nominees. Of them, three remained until the end. Only one could be the winner; The title, SIME Rising Stars of the North, went to Spotify with the motivation:

1. Spotify (Swe)

   The digital challenge against the music industry was launched by Scandinavian brains, it was pirated by Scandinavian inventions and technology, and now the solution is also Scandinavian. This years No1 Rising Star of the North created one of the hottest internet companies, a company that underlined Scandinavians decade-long position as the number one hotspot for internet entrepreneurship. A company that made the best brains, capitalists and even music moguls travel to Stockholm - to be Spotified.

2. Zendesk (Swe)

   The Internet has opened a more direct channel between customers and companies than ever before. Managing this flow of communication is a challenge for companies large and small alike, with every interaction a potentially dropped relationship.
This year’s nr 2 makes good on the promise of supplying simple, affordable, on-demand software for enlightening any company. The company is focused on the one thing that matters most; helping companies provide world-class support to their customers.

3. Tobii (Swe)

   Old thruth about marketing is that half of it is not needed. Still the challenge is to find out which half. Our bronze medallist are doing their fair share of finding that out. A totally different area is user interfaces where the long time trend has been towards natural like solutions. Can it be more natural than this? And a final noble bonus - they can make disabled peoples’ lives easier and support medical research.

4. Issuu (DK)
5. WebOfTrust (Fin)
6. Soundcloud (Swe)
7. Bambuser (Swe)
8. Peerialism (Swe)
9. Twingly (Swe)
10. Livebookings (Swe)
11. Youcalc (DK)
12. Unity Technologies (DK)
13. Loadimpact (Swe)
14. 23 Video (Swe)
15. Videoplaza (Swe)
16. MrGreen (Swe)
17. Powerkiss (Fin)
18. Mobileaxept (Nor)
19. Muxlim (Fin)
20. Burt (Swe)
21. Rubberduck Media Labs (Nor)
22. Ball-It (Fin)
23. Wreckamovie (Fin)
24. Wimp of Aspiro (Nor)
25. Joikuspot (Fin)
26. Spezify (Swe)
27. E-Conomic (DK)
28. Eat.fi (Fin)
29. Lumoflow (Fin)
30. Fileride (Swe)
31. Oculusai (Swe)
32. Aptocore (DK)
33. Cloudo (Swe)
34. Hammerkit (Fin)
35. BMenu (Nor)
36. Endomondo (DK)