Let’s get digital

With Expo 2020 around the corner, UPS embraces innovation-minded startups in Smart Logistics Challenge
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UPS and AstroLabs recently challenged some 45,000 startups and entrepreneurs to present game-changing solutions to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) grow.

Dubbed the Smart Logistics Challenge, the Dubai event drew 96 solutions from around the world, offering a more connected customer experience, last-mile optimization, automated correction of delivery addresses, address geocoding, use of blockchain solutions for customs compliance and many more.

Two were left standing – Zippr and KoiReader. Each will have the opportunity to work with UPS with an eye on speed and ease for SMBs.

“We see many opportunities to continuously improve the digital experience, especially for SMBs as we are making it much easier for them to connect, ship internationally and scale their operations to meet customer needs,” said Alan Williams, UPS vice president for Expo 2020 Dubai. “And that’s what this challenge was all about. This allowed us to look at what is the future and give some of these startups a global platform.”

Zippr was awarded an opportunity to pilot its digital street-addressing and door numbering (DDN) solution for UPS services in India.

“The pilot opportunity with UPS is a testament to our unique approach to solve the problem of unstructured addresses globally and an acknowledgement of our fundamental vision of making smart-street addresses ubiquitous as an infrastructure for the digital age,” said Parikshith Reddy, Zippr co-founder. “We absolutely loved the interaction with the AstroLabs team and the UPS leadership team.”

UPS also awarded KoiReader, a U.S.-based startup, with a collaborative thought leadership session around the Expo 2020 Dubai event to showcase how its template-less AI technology can help UPS® freight forwarding and customs process faster.

Its AutonomousOCRTM technology reads and understands documents like operational users do. UPS and KoiReader will showcase how the future of order-to-cash process is Autonomous thanks to emerging technologies such as document digitalization.

Other shortlisted startups included LogiNext, Quincus, Vector.ai, Locus and Route4Me.

About UPS and Expo 2020

Dubai will host Expo 2020, the largest event ever staged in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region running October 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022. Almost 200 countries will participate and millions of people from around the globe will visit during the six-month event.

Expo 2020 selected UPS to be the official logistics partner and it will be one of the most complex projects the company has ever handled. This will give the opportunity to showcase UPS’s portfolio to our customers, collaborate and build partnerships with other event sponsors and participants.

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