SaMoTer Innovation Award entries open

SaMoTer, the Italy-based international exhibition for construction machinery, has opened the competition to win its Innovation Award and receive recognition, highlighting achievements while at the show.

SaMoTer said it will be promoting technological evolution and research during the run-up to the 2020 event, scheduled to take place at the Verona Exhibition Centre from 21-25 March.

This time, the show promises to cover a greater variety of categories to ensure a more rounded representation of the construction sector, as well as the debut of a day of appointments with the trade press and a focus on design.

There are ten competition sections: hydraulic excavators; wheeled loaders; track-laying bulldozers; skid-steer loaders; backhoe loaders; graders; telehandlers; attachments; software applications and installations.

To be eligible for the award, machines, equipment or prototypes must show genuine innovation or improvement in the individual company production ranges. The product must also debut on the Italian market in 2020.

Construction companies, official representatives or importers, research institutions and bodies, universities and professionals active in the world of construction and building site machinery are all invited to take part.

The closing date for entries for the 23rd Innovation Award is 28 October 2019.

The winners of the competition will later take part in the “B2Press” initiative, which includes a prize-giving ceremony in Verona on the evening of 23 January 2020 and, on the following day, “Speed date” meetings with journalists from the international trade press.

The jury, chaired for the first time by technical journalist Costantino Radis (the profiles of the jurors are available here), will assess innovative investments such as solutions for energy efficiency, production optimisation, elimination of ergonomic or operator safety problems and sustainability in construction and use of machines.

Applied design will also be considered, which for the 2020 SaMoTer Innovation Award, will be a category awarding a special prize.

Radis said, “The earth moving machinery sector is evolving towards even more digitisation and we therefore envisage that this aspect will also play a central role in the proposals entered for the competition.

“The by-now very near future of this market will be focused on process control and vehicle efficiency, including remote control, thanks to 5G networks or, in particular situations, work in full autonomy exploiting artificial intelligence.”