Optus and Nokia are ‘Calling All Innovators’ to help fuel competition and technological innovation in Australia's mobile phone industry.
Budding Australian innovators can win up to $5,000 by designing new Nokia applications and content for mobile phones. Anybody can enter the contest and choose between the following categories listed on the 'calling all innovators' website:
Eco/Being Green
Like its name implies, this category challenges developers to help save the planet with innovative, eco-friendly applications for use on Nokia devices.
Entertainment
Here’s your chance to submit apps that rock, and show off the coolest multimedia features that are available on the latest Nokia mobile devices. This includes music, multimedia and games.
Productivity
This category seeks mobile applications that make consumers’ daily lives easier, and to help people become more efficient, such as utilities, business, or personal finance applications.
Life Improvement
This category seeks applications that positively affect the daily lives of people living in developing countries, and may include education, agriculture, health and more.
This year there is a new category, the Growth Economy Venture Challenge. According to Nokia, this is a unique chance for a developer to come up with an idea that revolutionises Nokia mobile phone handsets, and serves the needs of developing markets especially in terms of mobility.
The Growth Economy Venture Challenge is a strategic business strategy that may give Nokia a competitive edge in the global mobile phone industry. By investing in the telecommunications industries of emerging economies, Nokia have effectively built a social element into their business strategy and are strengthening consumer relations by asking the public to help.
So where does Optus fit into the picture? The final contest category includes local content opportunities and Optus have collaborated with Nokia to offer two opportunities for developers within the Australian market.
Australian innovators are invited to design puzzles or brain teasers so Nokia users can have fun testing their mental aptitude with a new entertainment mobile phone application. The second opportunity lies in a productivity application where Nokia wants developers to create an easy-to-use mobile form to process sales and other data.
Australian contestants can win AUD$5,000 for the local categories, but still participate in the four main categories to win between USD$5,000 and USD$30,000. There are also plenty of other cash prizes across the whole competition, which are sure to motivate innovators around the world. These include: best application for the Nokia N900, best cross-platform application using Qt, best mobile computing application and best locally relevant application with global potential.
This is a great chance for innovative folk to gain fantastic exposure and experience, not to mention the cash. However, the clock is ticking. The deadline is 10 June 2010, so you better get creative!