Forum Nokia is proud to announce the selection of 11 finalists in its Calling All Innovators global mobile developer contest, designed to generate applications and solutions that help to improve the quality of life on the planet.
Nearly 1,000 developers answered Nokia's challenge to think big and create mobile applications and services that can help build a better world. Nokia will award up to USD 150,000 in cash and prizes to the ultimate winners, in addition to helping the winning developers distribute their mobile applications worldwide.
The Calling All Innovators website received more than 246,382 unique visitors and more than 12,000 developers from around the world registered with Forum Nokia, the world's largest mobile developer community.
"The global interest in Calling All Innovators exceeded all expectations," said Rob Taylor, Director of Forum Nokia. "Developers went above and beyond with a variety of innovations demonstrating real potential to impact the future of our world."
Applicants rose to the challenge issued by Dean Kamen, technology pioneer and Calling All Innovators supporter, best known as the Segway PT inventor and founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization which inspires high school students worldwide to study science and technology.
Following are the category finalists of the Calling All Innovators global contest:
ECO-Challenge: Applicants were asked to submit applications or solutions that can minimize mobility's global environmental impact and enable consumers to make sustainable lifestyle choices that reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.
- GreenDrive (EMEA) - An application that promotes vehicular fuel efficiency by sensing current and impending road conditions that influence fuel consumption and providing real-time driving directions for the shortest route in the quickest time legally allowable.
- Ticketek Mobile Ticketing (Americas) - A Series 40 and S60 Java event-ticketing application that reduces paper consumption by allowing consumers to use a barcode stored on their phone to gain admission to events.
- Green Phone (APAC) - An S60 application maximizing battery life through improved regulation of device backlight, WLAN, Bluetooth and charger power consumption.
- TigerMap (China) - An eco-friendly city guide application that makes choosing public transportation easier, combining up-to-the-minute mass transit information with recommendations of the best restaurants, entertainment, hotels and shopping in more than 150 cities throughout China.
Emerging Markets: This category focused on making improvements in the daily lives of millions in developing nations, calling on developers to create new mobile solutions for areas such as education, health data access, infotainment and agriculture.
-mPedigree (EMEA) - This application allows users to text-message at no cost a quality-authentication code found on the packaging of anti-Malarial and other medications to a provisioned mobile shortcode in order to guard against counterfeit drugs believed to be responsible for an alarming number of deaths, especially in the developing world.
- DigitallCS (Digital Internal Control System) (Americas) - With this application, agricultural co-ops can inspect the growing practices of their members and upload the data to a website for reporting and analysis in order to verify the growers' adherence to standards that include Fair Trade Certified and Certified Organic.
- Nano Ganesh (APAC) - This application allows farmers in India to establish remote contact with distant, modem-equipped electric irrigation pumps, to check on power supply and pump operation without the need to travel long distances
Technology Showcase: This category highlights compelling applicatons for individuals or communities that are focused on the end-user experience and are built using Flash Lite, Java, Python, open source or other technologies supported by Series 40 or S60 devices.
- PhotoMap (EMEA) - This application digitizes and stores a photograph of any fixed public map taken with a camera phone for easy access, browsing and geo-referencing on the mobile device.
- kReader Mobile (Americas) - This multi-language text-to-speech application with cross-language translation capabilities uses the camera phone to digitize any book, letter, receipt or other printed document and translate the captured text into audio that is "read" back to the user.
- Neuscreen (APAC) - This application utilizes the drawing, touch-screen and camera functionalities of a Nokia N95 device connected to a normal television set to track the motion of a simple pen light and enable "virtual" drawing, as well as projection and manipulation directly on the TV screen of images stored on the mobile device.
- X Dancery (China)- This application, fully optimized for the S60 5th Edition's touchscreen UI and motion sensor technology, and with advanced 3D-graphics rendering capabilities, analyzes any MP3 file to automatically generate a unique tempo-based game for each selected musical track.
Winners will be announced on February 17, 2009 at Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona during the Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators Award Ceremony. All the finalists will receive paid travel and accommodations to Mobile World Congress. First place winners in each category will receive USD 25,000 and distribution of their application for free through a variety of Nokia channels. Second place winners in each category will receive USD 10,000 and third place winners will receive USD 5,000.
More information about Forum Nokia's Calling All Innovators including video demostrations of the applications can be found online at www.callingallinnovators.com.
About FIRST
Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, and engineering. With the support of many of the world's most well-known companies, the not-for-profit organization hosts the FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge for high-school students, FIRST LEGO League for children 9-14 years old, and Junior FIRST LEGO League for 6 to 9 year-olds. To learn more about FIRST, go to www.usfirst.org.
About Forum Nokia
Nokia's global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com.
About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet services, as well as our enterprise solutions and software, is a key area of focus. We also provide equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.