Forum Nokia has announced 11 finalists out of nearly 1000 entries for its Calling All Innovators developer contest. The focus of the contest is to generate applications and solutions that help to improve the quality of life on the planet.
"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."
In the ECO-Challenge category, developers 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. The finalists are:
GreenDrive, 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, 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, a S60 application maximizing battery life through improved regulation of device backlight, WLAN, Bluetooth and charger power consumption.
TigerMap, 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.
The Emerging Markets 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. The finalists are:
Mpedigree, an application that lets users 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, expecially in the developing world.
DigitallCS (Digital Internal Control System), an application that lets agricultural co-ops 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, an application that lets farmers in India 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
The Technology Showcase category highlights applications 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. The finalists in this category are:
PhotoMap, an 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, a 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, an application that 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, an application that's 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 $25,000US and distribution of their application for free through a variety of Nokia channels. Second place winners in each category will receive $10,000US and third place winners will receive $5,000US.
