At The Intersection Of Disruption And Innovation

This past summer, PYMNTS.com CEO Karen Webster explored the idea of innovation and what it means to be disruptive. As Webster noted, the term has become part of our everyday vocabulary to describe the products and services that help make our lives easier. But it’s used so much that it has started to lose its meaning. If everything is innovative, how can we really tell what’s truly going to change the world?

For decades, everyone from economists to academics to business leaders have tried to measure innovation using models of what an innovative company should look like. But so far, the term remains elusive.

But maybe that is because we have gone about defining innovation the wrong way. Instead of someone telling us what is or is not innovative, it is something that should be decided democratically.

Allow the masses to pick.

It was with this goal in mind that the PYMNTS team decided to create the PYMNTS Innovator Awards. From the open submission process to the voting process, the entire payments ecosystem is allowed to weigh in with their vote, creating a process that is unmatched in intellectual rigor and competitive energy.

And expert input from the community who knows innovation when it sees it.

This year, our panel of judges made up of executives, investors and innovators across the payments spectrum viewed and deliberated on the more than 600 submissions and narrowed them down to five finalists. These finalists will compete for 16 prestigious awards in categories like Most Innovative, Most Disruptive and Best New Technology.

And now, in our effort to remove the elusiveness of the meaning of innovation, we are opening up our list of finalists to a vote.

Finally, you have an opportunity to define innovation – at least for payments.

Voting is open now until Feb. 25. Click here to vote!

Winners will be announced during a live ceremony at The Innovation Project 2015, the payment industry’s foremost thought leadership event taking place this March 18 and 19.

Join us to see who takes home the prize. And, we promise, no Kanye moments.

Reserve your tickets here