Location Innovation Awards

The Location Innovation Awards are off to a great start. So far we have had 18 entries in only 3 weeks which is wonderful.

Over the last 2 weeks we have presented to ITC students at Massey Unversity, Raffles College and the Axcel Institute and in each case students were told that they can use their entry as part of their university assignments, which is fantastic. It gives students several opportunities.

• The can create the future technology they would like to use
• Use the skills and technology they have studied
• Gain experience with new tools and concepts
• Win great prizes including a trip to the 2009 Where 2.0 conference in San Jose where they can mix and mingle with industry leaders such as Google and Yahoo
• Gain recognition and future career opportunities
• Potentially create an business for themselves commercialising their ideas

As well as the main prize and four category prizes, we are also offering 3 prizes for the best student entries. There are no age requirements so entries will also be accepted from secondary or other school students.

Entries are racing in for the Location Innovation Awards

The Awards haven’t been running for 2 weeks yet and already 16 people have entered, which is wonderful. There are 3 student entries so far and the entries range from Auckland to Wellington, so no sign of anything from the South Island as yet. We did have someone wanting to enter from the USA but unfortunately they are not Kiwi’s and have never been to New Zealand.

Also interesting that entries seem to be fairly equal amongst the 4 categories of Social Networking, LBS Games, Proximity Based Marketing and Widgets for the AA Maps web site.

Hopefully we will see many more entries over coming days.

Why students are entering the Location Innovation Awards

We received 6 entries in the first 3 days of the awards which is wonderful.

Yesterday I presented at Raffles College and at Massey University, telling them about the competition and inviting them to participate. In addition to the teaser of 3 prizes for the best student entries, there are lots of reasons why students should consider this a great opportunity. The University and College agreed and both are being given assignments around the Awards.

So what are the benefits to students?

They have the potential to help shape the technology future they would like to see. How many times have you looked at technology and thought you could design a solution better? Here’s your chance and you don’t have to have the ability to build a working demonstration.

Computing, Business and Marketing students have an opportunity to work on real life solutons using the skills and technologies they have studied. They get the opportunity to access GeoSmart’s API’s and webservices and gain experience using new tools and concepts.

They fit well into the target demographic for LBS users.

A free trip to the US to meet and learn from industry leaders such as Google and Yahoo. There are also lots of other great prizes.

They will receive recognition and be able to positively influce future career or business opportunities and perhaps the chance to get support to commercialise their concepts.

I am looking forward to presenting at other universities over the next week.

The entries are starting to come in for the Location Innovation Awards

Within half an hour of the Location Innovation web site going live and the Geekzone Forum going up, we had our first 2 entries into the awards and are now up to 5 entries in the first 36 hours which is really exciting.

The web based media have also given us great support with stories in The Channel, The National Business Review, Scoop, Reseller News, NZS.com, Tone Magazine and PC World.

We have sent the release to lots of newspapers around the country so that everyone gets a chance to participate and are also working on getting the message out to the education community, because we are very keen for students to get in on the act and even have a prize for the best student entry.

Tomorrow we are doing presentations to students at the Raffles College of Design & Commerce and Massey University.

GeoSmart Launches the Location Innovation Awards

At GeoSmart we believe that Location Based Services applications (LBS) on mobile phones and converged devices will be commonplace in 4-5 years time. We want to bring the future forward by challenging people to develop concepts around this space with the Location Innovation Awards. The overall winner will enjoy a trip to San Jose in California to attend the Where 2.0 Conference in May 2009.

There are four categories that may be entered. These are Social Networking, Proximity Based Marketing, LBS Games, and Widgets for the AA Maps web site. Our sponsors includeThe Wireless and Broadband Forum, Massey University, Tomizone, Sony Ericsson, TomTom, Geekzone, MyMobile Magazine and Vodafone New Zealand who have contributed wonderful prizes.

The competition launched on 6 October 2008 and entries must be in by 16 February 2009 which gives participants ample time to come up with their concepts.

A forum on Geekzone for the competition has been set up so that peple who need assistance or want to throw ideas around can do so. There will also be regular updates on the GeoSmart WordPress blog .