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| The winners of Reliance Infocomm’s
Mobile Application Contest |
Mobile Application Contest 2003, the country’s
first-ever initiative for the mobile application developers, organised
under the Dhirubhai Ambani Developer Programme (DADP) by Reliance
Infocomm, in association with NASSCOM, was concluded with the recognition
of outstanding developers. The contest was for selecting the best
mobile applications and the best mobile application ideas from thousands
of talented software developers from across the country with cash
prizes in excess of over Rs 13 lakh. The contest was launched in
October 2003 and was open till January 2004.
From over 20,000 valid entries received for the
unique application ideas and 27 entries for wireless applications,
ITIDA Cad Services won the grand prize of Rs 5 lakh for their application
called ‘My Palette’. This exceptional application allows
users to create a cartoon or caricature on the Reliance IndiaMobile
phones using their imagination, with a few “click and select”
options available on the menu and link the same to the respective
caller ID or forward it as a multimedia (MMS) message to anyone,
anywhere.
Gametrix Entertainment bagged the first prize
of
Rs 3 lakh for its ‘Arena’ application,
a software platform that enables multiplayer games on mobile. An
independent developer duo—Mustansir Kaizar and Sumit Kumar,
students from IIT Kharagpur received second prize of Rs one lakh
for their ‘Auction’ application that implements an auction
system on mobile phone. This apart, there were six special prize
winners and six consolation prize winners.
In the mobile application ideas category there
were three prize winners: Akhil Mohan, Manisha Jha, and Tanujit
Ghosh. The contest was judged on the parameters of service applicability/relevance,
functionality of application, complexity and design of application,
and quality of documentation. The panel of judges comprised eminent
personalities, including Datta Subra-hmanya, head of telecom business,
HP’s Global Deliv-ery India Centre; Kapil Sood, director of
telecom vertical with Sun Microsystems India; Christian Ligier,
clie-nt executive, Sun Microsystems France SA; Rajiv A Vai-shnav,
regional director of Nasscom Mumbai and Prof Prabhat Ranjan, Dhirubhai
Ambani Institute of Infor-mation and Communication Technology, Ahmedabad.
Presiding over the prize distribution ceremony
Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom said, “This unique initiative
by Reliance Infocomm will provide the much needed push in mobile
applications space—one of the fastest growing software product
area globally. It has opened up new avenues for Indian software
talent. The opportunity to develop, test and deploy in a live and
world-class wireless network in India will open up new possibilities
for the Indian developer community globally.”
“We were very encouraged by the overwhelming
response we got for the contest from our developer community. Our
DADP developers have demonstrated exceptional creativity in developing
these market-relevant applications, which will enhance our
R World portfolio. We hope this will open up
innumerable opportunities, both nationally and internationally,
for the large number of software and creative talents,” said
Mahesh Prasad, president of Applications and Solutions Group of
Reliance Infocomm.
The contest was open to any individual or group
of individuals including students, partnership firms or companies
with skills in conceiving, designing, developing and testing mobile
applications in Java (J2ME) environment. The winning entries may
be launched on Reliance IndiaMobile’s R World, a service that
is currently used by over six million subscribers, all over India.
R World offers a range of innovative services on Reliance IndiaMobile
that helps its customers to access information, communication, entertainment;
transaction based applications on the move.
The contest was organised as part of Dhirubhai
Ambani Developer Programme (DADP), a pioneering initiative in India
to nurture talented software developers in the mobile application
space. Today the programme has more than 11,000 individual developers
and 800 independent software vendors (ISVs)/small and medium enterprises.
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