Overview
Irdeto has turned its innovation program into a high-performance engine for cybersecurity IP—yielding nearly 500 granted patents, with another 500 pending. Through global participation in hackathons, over 100 sabbatical days used annually, and a structured idea pipeline, the company consistently converts grassroots ideas into strategic solutions. With 1–2 hackathons per year generating 25–50 ideas each, and ~20% of them leading to successful outcomes, Irdeto is shaping the future of digital platform security across video, gaming, and connected industries.
The Company
Irdeto is a global leader in digital platform cybersecurity, with over 50 years of experience protecting video entertainment, gaming, and connected industries such as transport and infrastructure.
Headquartered near Amsterdam, Irdeto serves more than 400 customers in over 75 countries and holds nearly 500 granted patents. Innovation is one of its four core values—and a cornerstone of how the company operates, competes, and evolves.
The Hackathons
Irdeto runs executive-sponsored hackathons that mobilize all 1,000 employees around key business goals.
While 70% of the workforce is in technical roles, Irdeto deliberately engages non-technical staff across business units, unless a hackathon is intentionally scoped for a specific group.
Two recent examples include:
- Generative AI Hackathon 2024: Focused on preparing Irdeto to respond to the GenAI revolution while identifying risks and opportunities across its industries.
- Hack to Save 2025: Aimed at driving measurable improvements in efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability, aligned with Irdeto’s 2025 business objectives.
The Core Tech team at Irdeto during Hack Day, where they collaborated on developing a Post-Quantum Cryptography module.
The Pipeline
At Irdeto, innovation follows an end-to-end pipeline designed to turn ideas into tangible results:
- Hackathons spark grassroots ideation
- Innovation Sabbaticals support deeper exploration
- Invention Disclosures feed directly into the company’s patent system
Hackathons at Irdeto follow a proven structure, combining strategic planning, grassroots energy, and cross-functional collaboration, all powered by the HYPE Innovation platform:
- 3 months out: The theme is selected, an executive sponsor is secured, and internal promotion begins.
- Campaign launch: The campaign is created and promoted internally through SharePoint, email, and office displays. Example ideas are pre-seeded using HYPE’s AI Idea Generator to provide early inspiration and clarify the theme.
- 6 weeks out: Submissions open. The Core & Advanced Technology (CAT) team engages known innovators to refine early ideas and encourage new ones.
- 2 weeks out: Teams begin forming around submitted ideas, replacing traditional top-down evaluation with grassroots support.
- 1 week out: Idea leads are guided through logistics and encouraged to document results.
- Hack Day: Globally distributed teams work around the clock, handing off across time zones.
- Post-event: Outcomes are submitted in HYPE, with follow-up actions determined.
No ideas are rejected. If an idea gains enough participant interest, it moves forward, reinforcing Irdeto’s bottom-up culture of experimentation.
“HYPE has been a powerful enabler for innovation at Irdeto. It gives us the structure to surface ideas from across the organization, connect people across borders and functions, and accelerate the path from concept to outcome.”
– Werner Strydom, Head of Advanced Technology and Innovation, Irdeto
The Sabbaticals
Irdeto’s Innovation Sabbatical program provides each employee with 10 days annually to pursue innovation outside their daily role. These sabbaticals are often used to advance hackathon ideas or validate high-potential concepts that need further development.
Examples include:
- Digital Key Integration Testing: Staff used their sabbatical to test Irdeto’s keyless entry tech in EU-based delivery vehicles, helping scope integration for a prospective customer. The work directly supported a global fleet deal now in rollout.
- Watermarking Enhancements: Coordinated sabbaticals in 2024 led to visual and security upgrades in Irdeto’s watermarking solution, now part of the product roadmap.
- Next-Gen HSM Concepting: A team explored replacing third-party security hardware with a proprietary alternative, defining requirements for what became the HSM-less Keyserver.
Sabbaticals enable deep exploration, technical validation, and interdisciplinary teamwork, and often lead to tangible outcomes. The program, treated like leave, is optional but widely valued and cited as a recruitment differentiator.
Team members at Irdeto’s Hoofddorp headquarters come together in person to develop cybersecurity solutions during a hackathon.
The Patents
All of Irdeto’s patents originate through its innovation pipeline. The company holds close to 500 granted patents and has an additional 500 pending, many of which have passed through the HYPE platform in the last three to four years.
A formal invention disclosure and IP management process, overseen by Irdeto’s cross-functional IP Committee, ensures ideas are reviewed and—if novel—filed as patents or protected as trade secrets.
On average:
- ~10 invention disclosures are submitted per year
- ~5 are filed as patents annually
These patents span product lines from tamper-resistant gaming software to conditional access and connected transport security.
The process is supported by a structured incentive program. Employees earn recognition points for submitting disclosures and receive significant monetary rewards—often totaling thousands of euros—when their ideas are filed or granted.
The Results
Across hackathons, sabbaticals, and IP filings, Irdeto’s innovation program has delivered measurable and repeatable impact:
- 1–2 global hackathons annually
- 150–350 participants per event
- 25–50 ideas per campaign
- 80–90% of ideas proceed to hack day
- ~20% of ideas yield successful or useful outcomes
- 110 sabbatical days used by 32 employees in the past 12 months
- ~10 invention disclosures annually, with ~5 resulting in patents
These outcomes span teams, regions, and functions.
The EMEA team joins Irdeto’s global hackathon remotely—driving cross-border collaboration on cybersecurity innovation.
The Impact
Hackathons at Irdeto have led to business growth, societal benefit, and cultural transformation:
- New product capabilities: A 2019 hackathon idea led to Video Fingerprinting—a tool that identifies pirated content by matching short video clips to titles in Irdeto’s database. It now supports key anti-piracy workflows.
- Social innovation: In 2022, a team launched the Ukrainian Warehouse Portal, enabling refugees to browse and request donated items. Still in use, the solution expanded Irdeto’s CSR footprint and is adaptable to future relief efforts.
- Cost and tech gains: The HSM-less Keyserver, developed through a 2023 hackathon and sabbatical, replaced outdated third-party hardware with a flexible, lower-cost in-house solution used in video content protection.
- Industry expansion: Two 2023 hackathon ideas—SBOM Enhancement ML Model and Make CVE Description Text More Machine Readable—helped Irdeto evaluate cybersecurity needs in Connected Health, guiding its entry into this emerging sector.
Employees report feeling empowered, connected, and proud to contribute to ideas that matter.
“Being part of the hackathons over the past four years has been incredibly rewarding. It’s not just about ideas—it’s about feeling heard, supported, and seeing how much the company values creativity and collaboration.”
– Sabrina Orlov, Global PR and Communications Manager, Irdeto
The Culture
Irdeto’s CEO strongly supports grassroots innovation, favoring open access over top-down structures like committees or centers of excellence. This leadership mindset has directly shaped the design and openness of its innovation programs.
Innovation is embedded at every level—from C-suite commitments to employee-led experiments—and is reinforced through visible, structural support across the company:
Core Value
Innovation is designated as one of Irdeto’s four core values
Executive Backing
Research Focus
Patent Incentives
Time Allocation
Recognition Events
“Innovation is not a side project at Irdeto—it’s embedded in how we think, work, and grow. By creating space for experimentation, we turn ideas into impact and give every employee a voice in shaping our future.”
– Peter Oggel, CTO and SVP Technology Operations, Irdeto
Key Questions to Ask Your Employees
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