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ISSIP 2026 Excellence in Service Innovation Award Program Awardees
ISSIP Announces 2026 Excellence in Service Innovation Awards for Impact to Business, Society and to Innovation
Ten Additional Teams Earn Distinguished Recognition for Their Innovations
“This year’s submissions represented the best of the ISSIP community across industry, academia, NGO and government entities, with initiatives calibrated to benefit people, business and society in meaningful ways.”
— Haluk Demirkan, 2026 President of ISSIP
SANTA CLARA, CA, USA, April 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP), the membership organization advancing Service Innovation for our interconnected world, today announced the winners of the 2025 Excellence in Service Innovation and Distinguished Recognition Awards.
The ISSIP Excellence in Service Innovation award is given to an organization that has designed, developed, or deployed an innovation that will benefit business, society or innovation itself. Submissions undergo rigorous evaluation by ISSIP’s Awards Committee, composed of experts from industry and academia not affiliated with the submitting companies. Submissions are scored on the uniqueness, creativity, technical merit, value generation and impact of the innovative solution in each of three categories: ‘impact to business,’ ‘impact to society’ and ‘impact to innovation.’
“We are pleased to recognize the excellence of service innovation efforts underway in the ISSIP community. This year’s submissions represented the best of the ISSIP community across industry, academia, NGO and government entities, with initiatives calibrated to benefit people, business and/or society in meaningful ways,” said Haluk Demirkan, 2026 President of ISSIP.
“My thanks to the ISSIP community for submitting this year’s highly impressive crop of innovations, and to our panel of judges for making the time to rigorously evaluate, rank and score the submissions,” said Haroon Abbu (Bell & Howell SVP Digital Technology and Data Analytics, and ISSIP Awards Chairperson).
Each award winning organization and team is invited to share their innovation project or initiative with the ISSIP Community, in ISSIP’s Weekly Speaker Series in the coming months. Recordings will be uploaded to ISSIP Youtube and the slides uploaded to ISSIP Slideshare, to foster learning and growth for all.
Award Type: Winner – Impact to Society
Innovation: The Don Norman Alliance for Humanity
Summary: Many nonprofits, NGOs, Foundations, and government agencies aim for societal benefit. DNAH is unique in emphasizing quality of life above cost and schedule, ensuring that the work is done with and by the community for which it is intended. Many groups claim to use human-centered design (HCD). DNAH focuses upon Humanity Centered Design (HCD+) – The power is in the plus – thinking of the entire system that impacts the work, including the ecology, the environment, the multiple stakeholders, and primarily, the interests, concerns, and capabilities of the community members. We focus on the services that are offered, recognizing that every product is, in actuality, a way of delivering services, but only if the entire broadly based system is considered – how the service impacts the ecological system, all living things, and the culture of the community.
Organization: Don Norman Alliance for Humanity
Primary Contact: Srini Srinivasan (LI) (DC)
Don Norman (LI) (DC), Srini R Srinivasan (LI) (DC), Rao Machiraju (LI) (DC), Anil Kripalani (LI) (DC), Arlene Harris (LI) (DC), Christine Trimble (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Winner – Impact to Business
Innovation: Cisco AI Assistant for Support, AI Intelligent In-Product CX
Summary: Cisco AI Assistant for Support, AI Intelligent In-Product CX, is an embedded AI engine that moves enterprise support from reactive and portal-based to intelligent and in-product. Cross-functional teams across CX, BU, and product design unified decades of institutional knowledge – drawn from a corpus of 1.7 million support cases per year – into a three-layer architecture that delivers proactive recommendations, AI-powered diagnostic reasoning, and guided resolution directly inside the product workflow. The engine captures product metadata, user context, runs diagnostics, and escalates to human engineers when needed – across cloud, on-prem, and air-gapped environments. With 200,000+ users and 15,000 weekly engagements across multiple Cisco product families, the platform is Cisco Secure Development Lifecycle (CSDL) certified and built to WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards. Its unique combination of proactive intelligence, domain-specific reasoning, and human-centered design establishes a new paradigm for enterprise customer experience and digital resilience.
Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc.
Primary Contact: Nik Kale (LI) (DC)
Nik Kale (LI) (DC), Shankar Ramanathan (LI) (DC), Foster Lipkey (LI) (DC), Necati Cehreli (LI) (DC), Johan Castro (LI) (DC), Ullie Versavel (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Winner – Impact to Innovation
Innovation: iForAI
Summary: iForAI is a unique, repeatable service that closes the gap between an organization’s AI curiosity and full production adoption. It blends community engagement (global and internal AI hackathons), hands-on upskilling, rapid prototyping, and turnkey operational templates so that validated MVPs move rapidly into production with enterprise MLOps, security, and ethical governance built in. Unlike consultancy-only approaches or point tools, iForAI delivers a continuous pathway – discover dozens of prioritized use cases, coach cross-functional teams to build real MVPs, and provide deployable infrastructure and processes that scale. The model emphasizes measurable business outcomes and transfers capability to client teams, which both lowers risk and enables organizations to sustain their own AI innovation.
Organization: iForAI
Primary Contact: Ofer Hermoni (LI) (DC)
Ofer Hermoni (LI) (DC), Asaf Yosifov (LI) (DC), Ira Komarova (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: Tetra Pak Plant Secure
Summary: Tetra Pak(r) Plant Secure is an ISO-55000-based, all-in-one, plant-wide offering with outcome guarantees for the entire factory‚ not just individual machines. It bundles maintenance and spare parts, digital integration, expert services and workforce routines into one agreement that guarantees outcomes such as operational cost, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) or Time Utilisation (TU) across the value stream. Beyond improving operational KPIs, it is designed to improve financial performance‚ Return on Capital Invested (ROIC)‚ by increasing throughput and asset utilisation, reducing waste, resources and CO2 footprint, and improving labour productivity to lower operating cost per unit. Additionally, it can reduce the per-unit consumption of energy, water, and CO₂.
Organization: Tetra Pak
Primary Contact: Jonas Daberkow (LI) (DC)
Jonas Daberkow (LI) (DC), Sasha Ilyukhin (LI) (DC), Petra Andersson (LI) (DC), Gary Whitehead (LI) (DC), the Services Solution Team (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: uKnowva HRMS – AI-driven HR Software for Smarter Workplaces
Summary: uKnowva HRMS for Humanising HR Tech with an AI and skills-driven platform that redefines how organizations manage, engage, and empower their workforce. Its uniqueness lies in combining empathy with intelligence‚ offering predictive insights, skill mapping, and adaptive automation through a smooth-as-butter, intuitive UI/UX. Designed for all‚ whether enterprises or startups‚ fully paperless, go-green, and cost-effective. Its voice-assisted, accessibility-first interface ensures inclusivity for visually impaired users, while AI chatbots, auto-suggestions, and smart analytics simplify every HR task. The modular, low-code framework enables organizations to innovate quickly without technical complexity. Certified for data security and privacy (SOC 2), uKnowva stands for ethical, sustainable, and human-centric innovation‚ where technology works for people, not the other way around.
Organization: uKnowva HRMS
Primary Contact: Vicky Jain (LI) (DC)
Vicky Jain (LI) (DC), Priyank Jain (LI) (DC), Abhay Talekar (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: Obase, AI AI-Powered Quality Assurance at AssisTT
Summary: AssisTT’s AI-Powered Quality Monitoring System developed in collaboration with OBASE uniquely automates end-to-end call quality assessment using a hybrid AI model that blends LLM-based semantic analysis with rule-based business logic. The system evaluates over 450.000 calls monthly, compared to 5,000 manually, reducing per-call cost from 49 TL to under 0.5 TL while improving accuracy and objectivity. It detects nuanced issues such as improper expressions, missing authentication steps, and incorrect service process execution using Turkish NLP models like BERT and cosine similarity algorithms. The solution‚ architecture integrates seamlessly with AssisTT’s Qline quality monitoring interface and data warehouse systems, transforming subjective human evaluation into a scalable, auditable, and fair process that sets a new industry standard for AI-driven quality management.
Primary Contact: Dilek Aksu (LI) (DC)
Utku Can Aytaç (LI) (DC), Ekin Olkan (LI) (DC), Aynur Seskir (LI) (DC), Ferhat Ayhan (LI) (DC), Büşra Çiftçi (DC), Recep Sakman (LI) (DC), Mehmet Fatih Sertoğlu (LI) (DC), Emre Yiğit (LI) (DC), Orkun Ateş (LI) (DC), Selda Çağlayan Sağır (LI) (DC), Fatma Tuncer (LI) (DC), Gülşen Özkaya (DC), Adem Nergiz (LI) (DC), Fırat Büyükçolak (LI) (DC), Mustafa Çolak (LI) (DC), Halil Aktaş (LI) (DC), Atilla Saz (LI) (DC), Enes Macit (DC), Tolga Yavuz (LI) (DC), Emre Emir (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Society
Innovation: Trade & EduBridge
Summary: Trade&EduBridge – Turkey-USA Pathways is a first-of-its-kind initiative that merges international education, trade, and cultural exchange under one platform. Unlike traditional student placement services, it leverages Turk Expo USA‚ established network of business expos and trade partnerships to build direct relationships between Turkish students, American schools, and industry leaders. This approach creates not only academic opportunities but also exposure to innovation, entrepreneurship, and global business ecosystems. The program integrates technology-driven matching tools, personalized mentorship, and cross-sector collaboration to ensure that education becomes a bridge to both professional growth and international cooperation. By combining educational mobility with trade and innovation networks, EduBridge introduces a holistic model that nurtures future global leaders while strengthening economic and cultural ties between Turkey and the United States.
Organization: TurkExpo USA
Primary Contact: Meltem Cinar (LI) (DC)
Meltem Cinar (LI) (DC), Goktug Cinar (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: Obase, AI Smart Procurement with AI at Turkcell
Summary: The uniqueness of the service innovation lies in its hybrid AI-driven architecture tailored specifically for procurement data standardization at enterprise scale. Unlike traditional rule-based or standalone machine learning systems, it combines deterministic validation rules with LLM-assisted semantic understanding and classification. This enables the creation of correct product attributes and accurate UNSPSC mapping, even if product and service descriptions are incomplete, inconsistent or entered as free text. Additionally, the system actively guides users during purchase order entry by suggesting standardized product names, categories, and mandatory attributes, preventing errors at the source. Its ability to detect and eliminate duplicate definitions in real time creates a single, consistent procurement data foundation. Designed as a reusable and scalable platform, the solution can be deployed across organizations and industries, making it a distinctive and impactful innovation in intelligent procurement.
Organization: Turkcell Technology, OBASE
Primary Contact: Dilek Aksu (LI) (DC)
Tuğçe Karagöl (LI) (DC), Aynur Seskir (LI) (DC), Burcu Oral (LI) (DC), Uğur Civelek (LI) (DC), Ömer Faruk İşbilen (LI) (DC), İlker Gürses (LI) (DC), Aleyna Nur Aksu (LI) (DC), Burak Emre Küçük (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: AI-Enabled Predictive Retention & Offers
Summary: Most churn initiatives treat ‚ ‘leaving‚’ as a single event and produce one blunt risk score. This service innovation treats retention as three connected problems instead – savings churn, loan churn, and what should we offer next?‚ for each member. We are building separate machine learning models for savings and loan churn, plus a shared Next Best Offer engine that sits on top of both and suggests specific actions rather than generic outreach. That structure lets us respond differently when savings balances quietly drain, when loan pay down patterns change, or when both happen at once. The whole design is intentionally lightweight – it runs on top of an existing data warehouse and BI function, so a midsized institution can operate a multi -model retention ‘brain’, without needing a large inhouse data science team.
Organization: Sound Credit Union, University of Washington Tacoma
Primary Contact: Yekaterina Stark (LI) (DC)
Disha Shetty (LI) (DC), Amrit Raj (LI) (DC), Yekaterina Stark (LI) (DC), Mikaela Rabago (LI) (DC), Zyaire J Fullwiley (DC), Denis Mun (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: AI Insights with John Roese
Summary: AI Insights with John Roese is unique in its sustained, executive-level treatment of AI as a scalable business capability rather than a discrete technology trend. Unlike one-off reports or vendor announcements, the service provides a continuous, evolving narrative that integrates strategy, infrastructure, governance and real-world deployment lessons. Its credibility stems from direct engagement with enterprise-scale challenges learned through Dell’s own adoption of AI and from positioning AI innovation within broader service systems, ecosystems and societal contexts. The offering bridges technical depth and executive relevance, enabling leaders to make informed, long-horizon decisions about AI adoption and value creation.
Organization: Dell Technologies
Primary Contact: Deb Stokes (LI) (DC)
John Roese (LI) (DC), the Dell Communications Team (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: CardGenie, AI Smart Rewards Companion
Summary: CardGenie is a first-of-its-kind intelligent financial companion that instantly recommends the optimal credit card for every purchase, helping users maximize rewards, reduce financial waste, and improve credit health with zero effort. While existing tools track spending, CardGenie transforms that data into actionable, real-time guidance. Its uniqueness lies in its end-to-end ecosystem – card portfolio tracking, real-time merchant-category intelligence, loyalty point aggregation, expiration alerts, credit utilization monitoring, and a smart recommendation engine all within a single interface. Unlike traditional apps, CardGenie evaluates both actual and optimal card usage, quantifying missed opportunities and dynamically adjusting recommendations. It is built for inclusivity – usable by rewards beginners, busy families, and expert optimizers alike. By turning complex financial rules into simple, personalized instructions, CardGenie redefines how everyday consumers interact with financial benefits.
Organization: Sound Credit Union, University of Washington Tacoma
Primary Contact: Riddhi Bajaj (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Innovation
Innovation: HuskyHack
Summary: HuskyHack is a two-phase fintech innovation challenge co-hosted by Sound Credit Union and the University of Washington Tacoma. It brings together college students across Washington State to design, build, and pitch fintech solutions that improve financial health and enhance the credit union member experience. Unlike traditional hackathons that focus only on ideas, HuskyHack emphasizes working proofs of concept, user-centered design, and real-world feasibility. Participants receive mentorship and expert feedback while developing solutions that address practical financial challenges such as organizing and maximizing benefits, rewards, and opportunities that often go unclaimed. Submissions are evaluated on innovation, impact, execution, user experience, scalability, and clarity, ensuring outputs are both creative and implementable. The program is designed to be repeatable and scalable, serving as a sustainable model for university‚ industry collaboration in service innovation.
Organization: Sound Credit Union, University of Washington Tacoma
Primary Contact: Michael Turek (LI) (DC)
Jennifer Reed (LI) (DC), Michael Turek (LI) (DC), Lindsey Kealoha (LI) (DC), Ozge Kantar-Boyraz (LI) (DC), Thanh Thai (LI) (DC), Raihab Baig (LI) (DC), Haluk Demirkan (LI) (DC)
Award Type: Distinguished Recognition – Impact to Business
Innovation: EverRise Now
Summary: EverRise Now is unique in that it operates as a purpose-built service innovation at the executive layer, bridging the gap between strategy, technology, and execution. Unlike traditional consulting or technology services, EverRise Now embeds executive operating leadership, governance structures, and AI-enabled insight directly into client decision-making and delivery processes. The service is designed around co-creation with client leadership teams, shared accountability for outcomes, and sustainable capability transfer. Advanced technologies are used intentionally as service enablers‚ supporting prioritization, performance governance, and insight‚ rather than as standalone solutions. This integrated, executive-led model enables organizations to achieve measurable economic, operational, and societal impact while building long-term resilience and reducing dependency on fragmented external interventions.
Organization: EverRise Now
Primary Contact: Steven Brown (LI) (DC)
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