GLOBAL – Eleven finalists have been chosen to go forward to the finals of Forum Nokia’s Calling All Innovators global developer competition. Three categories, ECO-challenge, Emerging markets challenge and Technology Showcase, attracted almost 1,000 developers from across EMEA, Americas, APAC and China. The final winners will be announced on the 17 February during Mobile World Congress 2009.
The challenge, which has been running since last September, centred around getting developers to think in new ways about how to use the mobile phone and applications to affect the quality of human life. The competition was supported by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway PT and founder of FIRST said:
“Now that mobile devices are becoming as powerful as personal computers and more ubiquitous, challenging mobile developers and young inventors to develop the right applications can take the device simply known as a cellular phone and transform it into a catalyst to help society in many different ways.”
There will be up to $150,000 in cash and prizes on offer for the winners, along with help for developers to distribute their applications to consumers. Judges, selected by Forum Nokia, will decide the winners over the next two weeks.
There are some really exciting apps to come out of this competition and I reckon the judges are going to have a tough job deciding on the winners. We’ll be taking a closer look at each of the finalists over the next two weeks, in the lead up to the announcement of the winners. You can have a peak at them now on the CallingAllInnovators.com website.