The Barbarian Group takes out Grand Prix at Cannes Innovation Lions for ‘Cinder’; DE-DE wins one of three Innovation Lions for ‘Thunderclap’

The US has done extremely well at the Cannes Innovation Lions with The Barbarian Group taking out the Grand Prix for its ‘Cinder’ software technology as well as DE-DE New York winning one of only three Cannes Innovation Lions for ‘Thunderclap’.

Launched this year, the Innovation Lions category received 270 entries. After preliminary judging, the jury, led by David Droga, founder, Droga5, then convened in Cannes to review their chosen shortlist of 25 entries. For the first time, delegates were invited into the jury room as shortlisted entrants presented their technology innovation.

Says Benjamin Palmer, CEO of The Barbarian Group: “We are delighted that Cinder is helping everyone do better, more interesting work and that a tool we’ve developed and supported has taken on a life of its own in both the open source and creative communities.”

Started in 2007 by the agency as an in-house tool, Cinder was made free and available for public use when The Barbarian Group released the software to the open source community in 2010. The platform has since been used to produce independent and commercial work across the world, including large scale interactive installations, intricate data visualizations and mobile applications.

Additionally, Cinder has been used by academic institution MIT Media Lab, technology companies including Google and Microsoft, and has played an integral role in large-scale creative work for brands such as Charity:Water, Nike and IBM.

Says Palmer: “Our favorite thing about digital advertising is the constant opportunity for new forms of creativity. We must continuously innovate and push the boundaries of what’s creatively possible, and tools such as Cinder enable us to do that.”