The guest speaker of this “Present Yourself” is, in her own right, proof that IT developments and graphic creativity can go hand in hand. Elfy Pins, creator of the Supermiro and Helloboss websites, was able to refer back to her success story, launched in 2015.
Elfy Pins arrived in Luxembourg a few years earlier, after moving between New York, Paris and Milan, and worked for more than a decade in the creative field. However, she has also always shown a keen interest in the places where she has lived. “I’ve always been looking for the latest fashionable place to run, to have a coffee, to relax. I like to know every square meter of my city,” she explains. “You can of course use a search engine for this, but it often lacks real local references. That’s why I created Supermiro.”
The credo of the application: to become the close friend, available 24 hours a day, who knows all the good things to do in the city and the region. First launched as a minimum viable product, in the form of a responsive website, Supermiro quickly became a “Minimum viable brand”, driven by an efficient and attractive design. As a result, in six months, the site accounted for 10,000 active monthly users, with a marketing investment of zero euros and the deployment of no particular technology.
Then the service had to move up a gear. For the past two years, Supermiro has been developing its website and application using algorithms based on automated data extraction and processing systems, as well as natural language processing and syntaxic analysis relying on ontologies (i.e. the structured set of terms and concepts representing the meaning of an information field). “This allows us to manage a massive influx of data, which can be a photo, a given category, a keyword… In 2018, we managed more than 100,000 events, with data made available through an efficient user experience and interface. That’s how we became the super cool AI-powered assistant for the free time of millions of people.”
Supermiro now has more than 110,000 regular users and 170% annual revenue growth… Started in Luxembourg, the application now reaches the Greater Region and is going to attack Brussels. Building on this success in terms of “leisure” events, Elfy Pins launched Supermiro’s “little brother”, Helloboss, which “takes care of the professional agenda”.
Members introduced themselves
Enthused by this story, the audience then followed the presentations of four members of the ICT and Creative Industries clusters.
Iulia Cuzmina opened the way with MaPS System, a data management solution for multichannel marketing applications (MaPS = Marketing, Publishing and Sales). “Companies need to be everywhere at the same time, but they do not necessarily have the means or structure to do so. Depending on the context, and thanks to a centralised management of all company data, we determine what type of information should be communicated at what time via what type of channel.”
Based in Foetz, MaPS employs around 30 people and has a presence in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany.
Stéphane Ambrosini, Senior Associate of Marks & Clerk, then detailed the complex concept of intellectual property, which includes, among other things, patents, trademarks, copyrights, designs, domain names, etc.
All those subjects directly affect the players of the creative industries. “Intellectual property appears at all stages of a company’s activity, from the choice of its name to the marketing of products or services, including software interfaces, code creation, website content and social media. This generates different types of intellectual property rights that need to be properly assessed, managed and valued in order to be incorporated into the company’s marketable assets.”
Created in 1887 in Birmingham (England), Marks & Clerk has been established since 1989 in Luxembourg where the company acts as the group’s validation centre for European patents.
Luc Falempin, CEO of Tokeny Solutions, then presented his company, the recent winner of the 2019 Fintech Awards. It is a platform that allows one to issue, manage and transfer financial assets in the form of tokens, using blockchain. By automating as many processes as possible that meet the many regulatory requirements, the solution allows companies that use it to save a lot of time and efficiency in their process.
“We have just launched the InvestorID.org platform, which is a decentralised application that allows investors to access tokenised securities in a compliant manner by demonstrating their chain identity. It allows investors to verify their identity in the digital asset space and manage their own data.”
Tokeny is currently a start-up company hosted by the Luxembourg House of Fintech (Lhoft).
Finally, Mathias Keune, co-founder and CTO of Zenview, explained how immersive virtual reality can help reduce stress and increase well-being. “Extended reality is a generic term given to all computer-generated environments that merge the physical and virtual worlds or create a fully immersive experience for the user. This includes virtual reality, augmented reality or a mix of both. We are thus offering the first mindfulness solution in virtual reality, adapted to the individual needs of employees and companies.”
Launched a year ago, Zenview is looking for talented people (3D developers, product designers) and partners to develop further.
“The exchanges between the participants were very lively,” says Jean-Paul Hengen, manager of the Luxembourg ICT Cluster. “There are many bridges to be built between companies in the ICT and Creative industries sectors and synergies to be implemented through collaborative projects, whether in terms of technologies, intellectual property or user experiences. One needs the other, knowing that together we always go much further.”
Marc Lis, the manager of Luxembourg Creative Industries Cluster, is also satisfied with this first event shared between the two universes. “It is always interesting and enriching to meet the players of these two sectors and also to promote our live match-making tools, such as the ICT cluster catalogue or the www.creativecluster.lu platform”.