The jury has decided! Over the past four days, the Amazee contest jury has thought long and hard, looked thoroughly into each of the three finalists and has reached a decision. Everyone's a winner, but the money had to be distributed. This is how the seven judges ruled.
Most convincing obviously was the concept of "Studieren ohne Grenzen" ("Studying without frontiers"), a project by Felix Weth and Jan Knauer. The jury conceded 5,200 Euro to the association which supports students from Chechnya and Congo, the lion's share of the 10,000 Euro prize money.
Hendrik Köhler's "Pressenger.de" project came in second place. 2,900 Euros are awarded to the journalists' platform start-up. And last, but by no means least, there's the "Arm aber sexy" ("Poor but sexy") alliance of Berlin related projects by Holger Muster. For this he and the projects will receive 1,900 Euro.
At this point we would like to thank our jury members Claudia Hoffmann, Claudia Keller, Dominique Braun, Jürg Stuker, Markus Fraefel, Peter Hogenkamp and Torsun Burkhardt for their commitment. Our congratulations go out to the three finalists. We hope that the Amazee contest serves as motivation for everybody on Amazee to push their projects and alliances even further!
That went smoothly! No last minute votings by lost jury members come to haunt us at night, everybody looked into the nominated projects thoroughly and most of all: well in time. So, we have a winner, but, we are not telling you who receives what piece of the 10,000-Euro cake until tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Two days into the voting process and we already have three out of seven votes. There seems to be a certain tendency, but our lips stay sealed until Friday. We are superexcited, because there are still lots of things that can happen! Stay tuned.
Drama was all around last night on Amazee as alliances and projects tried to bring on everything they had. But time showed no mecy and as clock struck twelve, the Amazee night shift stopped the contest and determined the three winners. Here they are (tadaaa!): The Arm-aber-sexy-Allianz (poor but sexy alliance) of Holger Muster, the project Studieren Ohne Grenzen (studying without frontiers) by Felix Weth and Hendrik Köhler's Pressenger project. All of these were able to aggregate a couple of hundred members. Congratulations to all of them! They are all winners, now it is up to the jury to decide, which project or alliance receives how much of the 10,000 Euros in prize money. The jury's decision will be announced this Friday. Below in his mag you'll find portraits of the jury members, you can check out the winning projects and alliance in the hall of fame (
http://www.amazee.com/pstatistics). Of course the everybody should feel encouraged by the enormous activity that has stirred Amazee over the last couple of days. Keep those projects going!
Thorsten Burkhardt is known to everybody simply as Torsun. He is the punk rocker of the jury. Since 2000 he runs the German electro punk band Egotronic, which is most famous for one thing: Raving against Germany. Egotronic is musical politics with beats and brains. Currently he is finishing off his third album. If work allows (and it does!), he can be found in a dark Berlin underground club dancing into afterhour mornings.
Peter Hogenkamp studied information management at the university of St. Gallen. He graduated in 1996. In 2000 Peter co-founded Zeix AG, an agency for usability and user education. He was CEO of Zeix until the founding of Blogwerk. Zeix is market leader in this area and its over 20 employees work with well-known clients such as Swisscom, SBB or various cantonal banks. In 2006 Peter founded the Blogwerk AG but he still hasn't figured out what to print onto his German business cards. "Founder/CEO" sounds acceptable only in English.
Friends call Markus Fraefel simply Maegge. From 1998 to 2003 he studied economics at the University of Basel and graduated as the best of his year. So he probably qualifies as the brain of the jury. After university he worked as a teacher and lecturer at the Basel business school and the higher technical college for economics. Since 2007 he is a management consultant for Abegglen Management Partners AG in Volketswil near Zurich.
Jürg studied business information technologies in Zurich and along the way gained practical experience while working for the J. Vontobel & Co. AG bank. After his graduation he worked at a trading house vor cotton, later on he took over responsible positions with the Polynorm Software AG in Glattbrugg near Zurich. Since 1999 Jürg works for the IT enterprise namics. In November 2004 he becomes CEO of namics. Besides his work he is board member of the Swiss library for the blind and visually impaired as well as chairman of the technologies jury at BestOfSwiss Web.
Dominique Braun works at the infectious diesease department of the university hospital in Zurich. He is all the nurses best friend (but it's not what you are thinking!). When Dominique takes of his lab coat, boy does he change! He is a true styler: he enjoys nice clothes, good food and drink. Whenever he needs a timeout from a stressful job and the city, he takes his collection of sunglasses out to the beaches of Mykonos. A real esthete he is, something like the beau of the jury.
Claudia Keller has studied Law at no less than three Universities: at the University of Basel, at Hastings College of The Law at the University of California in San Francisco and at the CAS Brand Management Academy in Lucerne. Don't mess with her (in court)! Today she works as a lawyer for Vischer Lawyers at their Zurich office. She is an expert in trademark and copyright law. In her spare time she doesn't leave home without her camera - photography is her passion.