Futurezone Award for the blockchain

On 21 November, more than 500 technology enthusiasts gathered in Vienna to celebrate the country’s most exciting innovations. There were awards in eleven categories. The futurezone award for the blockchain of the year went to a project that digitizes freight documents for trucks. Participants in the Blockchain Initiative Logistik include, in addition to the auditing and consulting firm EY, EDITEL Austria, GS1 Austria, the Vienna University of Economics and Business, the Bundesvereinigung Logistik Österreich (BVL) and renowned logistics companies such as DB Schenker and LKW Walter. The initiative has been developing a pilot project that will study the use of blockchain technology for transport and logistics.

This first use case is dedicated to the digitization of freight documents. These documents are currently still mostly paper-based. Participants in this initiative organize workshops to pursue and analyze the objective of digitizing specific shipping documents using blockchain technology. One of the goals is to ensure that documents are available and can be accessed and processed at any given time by all participants in the process. This industry-specific solution is expected to automate roughly 75 million processes at Austrian logistics companies per year and save twelve million sheets of paper.

Gerd Marlovits, the CEO of EDITEL Austria GmbH, is very pleased about this award: “Since we are part of this initiative, this award makes us proud. During this pilot project, we will try to determine the fields where blockchain technology allows for new business processes and what the associated opportunities could be,” he said. Gregor Herzog, the managing director of GS1 Austria, is positive that “this technology has great potential especially for industries that have many standardized processes, which includes the shipping and logistics industries. As a data hub and part of this initiative, we want to make an active contribution to all related developments.”

In brief

• Founding participants include EDITEL Austria, GS1 Austria, DB Schenker, LKW Walter, the Bundesvereinigung Logistik Österreich (BVL) and the Vienna University of Economics and Business. The first specific use case revolves around the digitization of international freight documents (eCMR).
• Reduces costs, increases transparency, protects against forgeries and saves time and resources.
• Following an analysis and pilot phase in 2019, the project is expected to result in the creation of a commercial platform.