ICTworks by Inveneo

Last year, the World Bank issued a challenge to software developers from across the globe to take on some of the world’s most pressing development problems by creating digital apps using the Bank’s freely available data. The response was overwhelming, with 107 entries from 36 countries across six continents, and nearly a third from Africa.

A panel of expert judges, including technology gurus such as Kannan Pashupathy of Google, Ory Okolloh, co-founder of Ushahidi, and Craig Newmark of Craigslist, selected the winners. A total of $55,000 was awarded in cash prizes to competition winners.

The three winning apps all feature unique approaches to pressing development challenges:

· First Prize Winner - StatPlanet World Bank (Australia): With this powerful app, you can visualize and compare country and regional performance over time. The user can select from among the 3000+ indicators covering virtually every dimension of economic, social, and human development, and can select the manner in which the data is displayed. This app allows anyone an easy interface to these indicators - even without Internet connectivity - via a desktop version of the app. Entry - Website

· Second Prize Winner - Development Timelines (France): Development Timelines lets you put global development data into historical context and better understand how events such as war, education reforms, or economic booms and busts, affect progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. Entry - Website

· Third Prize Winner - Yourtopia - Development beyond GDP (Germany): This interactive app allows you to sum up human development according to your own criteria and, through a short quiz, choose how important different dimensions of development are to you. You can then participate in constructing a multiple-dimension index of human development. Entry - Website

The Apps for Development Competition was launched in September 2010 by World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick as part of the Bank’s Open Data Initiative, an effort that unlocks the institution’s world-class knowledge and development data for researchers, activists, students, and development practitioners across the globe. The initiative is rapidly expanding, in line with the huge demand for development data and information.

The Kenya ICT Board and the Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat invite companies
that have developed solutions that drive economic growth and social development
as outlined in Kenya's Vision 2030 to participate in the inaugural Vision 2030 ICT
Innovation Awards. The Award is proudly co-sponsored by Accenture Development Partnerships
(ADP).

The winners of the Vision 2030 ICT Innovation Award will be announced at the Connected
Kenya Summit on April 20.

Submit your ICT solution to be considered for the awards

Eligibility: Companies /organizations that have:
1. Officially registered in Kenya
2. Product or service that is complete and in full use for at least 6 months
3. Product or service that has Kenyan citizens as end user (can be delivered through
a third party company or organization)
4. Product or service that addresses at least one of the Vision 2030 social economic pillars

Criteria:
1. ICT Innovation: products or services must use ICT in a way that is new and unique. The innovation should be original in Kenya.
2. Market Impact: products or services must have a demonstrated positive impact on target community and have innovative strategy for market share growth
3. Functionality: product or service must be creative and user-friendly in its delivery and demonstrate compatibility and interoperability to third party products.

Deadline for submission: April 10, 2011

Samsung's mobile applications developers’ challenge will showcase Kenya’s talent by developing applications for the local market place. Interested developers can design mobile applications and submit into any of these categories:

1. Education/Reference
2. Games: Arcade/Action/ Casual/Puzzle
3. Social Networking + Lifestyle
4. Entertainment + Media
5. Productivity/Tools + Miscellaneous

Developers can submit their applications for any one of the 5 categories at the beginning of the contest. Not more than one application should be submitted for each category by a contestant.

1st Stage

There will be a first round selection stage, to identify applications built to specifications and standards suitable for mobile device rendition and functionality. In this round, the top 2 applications per category will be selected by a team at Samsung. There will also be a second round of selection by judges made up of professions in the fields of mobile software development and marketing. In this round the top application in each category will be selected. These applications will then move to the second and final stage of the contest. Each of the developers picked after Stage 1 will receive handsets from Samsung.

2nd Stage

At this stage, the top five (5) applications across all categories will be developed and deployed on Samsung Servers. There will be an app launch session @ ihub and alls developers whose applications as launched will win KShs 200,000 (approx $USD 2500).

Register your app today!

The Vodafone Americas Foundation and mHealth Alliance are pleased to announce a call for entries for the annual Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project and mHealth Alliance Award, a competition to identify and support promising wireless-related technologies to address critical social issues around the globe.

Proposals will be accepted from September 27, 2010 through December 15, 2010, with the final winners announced at the annual Global Philanthropy Forum in Redwood City, CA in April 2011.

"Through the Wireless Innovation Project, Vodafone Americas Foundation is proud to encourage innovation and further Vodafone’s efforts to advance mobile for good," said Andrew Dunnett, Director of The Vodafone Group Foundation.

"The Vodafone Americas Foundation and the awards are at the edge of the mobile frontier – encouraging and leveraging the most cutting edge technology to solve problems and enhance people’s lives."

The Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project will award $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000, to the first, second and third-place winners. The mHealth Alliance Award will be granted to the developer of an innovative wireless technology with the most potential to address critical health challenges, especially in developing regions of the world.

The award winner will receive an additional cash prize of $50,000, as well as strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance, an umbrella group founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation, Vodafone Foundation, PEPFAR and the GSM Association that supports cross-sector collaboration in delivering healthcare to the furthest reaches of wireless communications.

"We are proud to once again collaborate with the Vodafone Americas Foundation in presenting the mHealth Alliance Award," said David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance.

"With over 5 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, over two-thirds of which are in emerging economies, the use of mobile devices for health purposes can revolutionize the ability of governments, corporations, NGOs and citizens to deliver, access and use health information to promote well being, combat disease, and respond to medical emergencies."

Applicants for the Wireless Innovation Project must be nonprofits, educational institutions or social entrepreneurs based in the United States. Awards will be given to the wireless projects demonstrating exceptional promise to solve a critical global issue in the following fields: education; health; access to communication; the environment; or economic development.

Moreover, the innovation may also represent a significant advancement in wireless related technology to help solve issues such as connectivity, language barriers and energy use. Projects must be at a stage of development where an advanced prototype or field test can occur during the award period.

"Winning the Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Award has helped us to realize the potential of our innovation and enabled us to leverage further funds; we have received over $2 million in additional support," said Gil Zussman, Columbia University of EnHANTs Project, 2009 Wireless Innovation Project winner.

Through its foundations, Vodafone has long recognized that wireless technology has the potential to make the significant impacts in the world – particularly in developing countries. Vodafone Americas Foundation launched the Wireless Innovation Project in 2008 to foster creativity and fund the most promising innovations with the potential to solve pressing issues around the globe.

In addition to the Wireless Innovation Project, Vodafone and its global network of 27 foundations are helping hundreds of thousands of people around the world lead better, fuller lives through more than $60,000,000 in grants and contributions.

The 2010 winners included:

First Place - 100 Million Stoves
With the potential to improve health, air quality, reduce greenhouse gases and save lives, 100 Million Stoves is a simple wireless stove use monitoring system (SUMS) that can be attached to the millions of new low-emission stoves being used in developing regions. Being developed at the University of California at Berkeley for initial application in India, this groundbreaking wireless technology will help assess the impact of household energy programs, enable feedback from users, and provide transparent verification of carbon credits.

Second Place - FrontlineSMS: Credit
An open source software, FrontlineSMS:Credit has the potential to open up financial services and micro-financing to millions of people in the developing world. The application leverages mobile payment systems and core banking software to bring financial services – such as savings, credit, insurance and payroll – to the entrepreneurial poor, eliminating geographic and time barriers and turning mobile payment systems into platforms for mobile banking.

Third Place & mHealth Alliance Award - Sana
Sana is a multidisciplinary group based out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to revolutionize healthcare delivery in rural and underserved areas. Sana has developed an innovative open source platform that allows mobile phones to capture and send data for an electronic medical record and links community health workers with physicians for real-time decision support.

In an effort to get folks coding games that will run on netbooks, Intel ATOM Developer Program is sponsoring a Best Netbook Game Contest for netbook games created with either DarkBASIC Professional or Dark GDK, less than 250MB in their compressed state, not require an 'installer', and run at 1024 x 600 resolution.

While I cheer for the next Doom, here are the 4 categories. There will be one winner in the Best All Around Game Category and and 3 winners from the other categories.

1. Best all around netbook game: We are looking for either a unique or overall gaming value for a netbook.
2. Best graphics for a netbook: Looking for beautiful utility for a netbook game. Like a meandering garden path, it serves to get you from point A to point B, while pleasing the senses.
3. Best game play for netbook: Graphics or no graphics this category looks at the game play experience for netbook.
4. Standout Game Element: Perhaps it was the best explosion, death scene, sound effect, or unique use of zombie. This category wins by just doing something we could not help but like.

Now the prizes are interesting - 1st Prize is an all expenses paid vacation not to exceed US $5,000. Who knows to where. Int he categories, 1st Prize is US $1,000, visibility and recognition via a feature in the Intel Atom Developer Program Community and Campaign as well as the TGC community.

If you want to enter, you best be quick: deadline is October 3, 2010.