Starting at 14.00h, the European awards ceremony will include presentations to winners in each of three categories - entertainment and leisure; navigation; and social networking - as well as one global grand prize winner.   Open to anyone attending 3GSM, visitors to this event will be able to experience the European finalists’ solutions, meet the finalists and winners and hear first hand from the judges and sponsors about the winning applications and what’s next for the LBS industry.

The Challenge
The NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is a unique contest where developers of new location-based applications compete for a cash grand prize of €50,000 and €100,000 in NAVTEQ data licenses.

First launched in North America in October 2003, the contest was focused on driving the development and visibility of innovative navigation solutions for wireless devices.  The second annual contest expanded the potential contestant base beyond North America to include developers from around the world and introduced different solution categories to encourage application developers to explore new and creative location-enabled solutions. 

Industry validation of the value the Challenge has created for the LBS industry overall, encouraged NAVTEQ not only to proceed with the contest for a third year but also to hold judging and presentations for the first time in both Europe and the USA.

The Contestants
Both semi-final and final judging will take place in Barcelona.  The semi-finalists include:

• From Appello Systems in Sweden comes an off-board navigation system with POI lookup, traffic information, yellow and white page lookup, speed camera alert and an unparalleled support for mobile handsets.

• French company CITYNEO has developed Movingblog, the first mobile oriented map-based blogging application enabling you to take a snapshot of your life and post it on a map.

• Developed in Spain by Maptel in conjunction with Movidream, Localizame is a Telefónica Moviles service to locate people via mobile phone using the TME network.
The current Spanish legal requirements regarding personal privacy have been taken into consideration.

•  Microgestel®, from the Spanish Datatronics S.A., has been designed for location, security and personal assistance applications.  Permanent personal location for the elderly or handicapped, security forces or isolated workers etc, plus immediate telephone assistance from a Control Centre at the press of a button.

• German company Navigon has developed a navigation user Interface which reflects location based services as a dynamic location based content.

• MS4 Spooks Mobile from the Portugese Ydreams is based on the BBC’s TV series, it takes players into the midst of MI5 operatives, spies, international criminals and conspirators.   All the action is on UK maps.

• In the UK, ALK Technologies have submitted CoPilot Live: a satellite navigation system for mobile devices incorporating live communications as standard, including live tracking, messaging and traffic updates.

• In the Netherlands Route 66 has submitted door-to-door on board navigation software for Symbian series 60 and 80 smart phones. Key features include a large range of languages, ‘fuzzy search’, direct dialing of POIs, impressive global geographic coverage, night colours and GPRS connection to download up-to-data real-time traffic information (at no extra charge) for selective countries.

• From the Dutch Web Integration comes www.livecontacts.nl. - know where you are, find what is nearby, get where you are going, share your location along the way and stay connected.  Includes a comprehensive range of features.

The Judges
The official judges for the European leg are:

Heide Baumann, Head of Content, BT

Philippe Voisin, European Buying Director for Mobile Computing, Dixons

Andrew M. Gardiner, Director, European Technology Equity Research, Lehman Brothers

Keith Chappell, Managing VP of the Communication Applications Practice, Lucent

Mikko J Terho, VP Strategic Architecture, Nokia

Mike Short, VP Research & Development, O2

Jacques Garcin, Head of Telematics, Orange

Mike Barrett, Editor, Pocket GPS World

Norman López-Manzanares, MovilForum Project Manager, Telefónica Móviles de España

The Sponsors
Nokia is a global sponsor of this year’s Challenge and, in addition, has provided LBS applicants with access to resources from Forum Nokia, Nokia’s global developer programme, which offers tools, SDKs and technical documents for the mobile developer community.

“Nokia recognises the exciting potential and demand for location as a benefit in the wireless industry, and we are committed to working with application developers and carrier customers to create and
deploy appropriate customised, cost-effective location-based solutions,” said Nasser Iravani, Director, Forum Nokia Americas. “Our industry-leading encouragement of over 2 million mobile application developers aligns well with the objective of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge, which is to stimulate the introduction and proliferation of location in the wireless space by bringing together the key players in the LBS/wireless value chain.” 

A collection of influential sponsors joined Nokia including, in Europe:

ESRI: ESRI ArcWeb Services offer wireless LBS application developers access to rich content and functionality through SOAP Web Services. ArcWeb Services are hosted by ESRI and include more than fifty-five programming objects with access to over 150 data sets.

Telcontar: provides geospatial software to powers cutting-edge, location-based services provided by the world's best-known Internet and wireless companies, including Google, TeleNav, Appello and Yahoo!.

PTV: PTV MobilityPlatform is a toolbox for creating innovative mobility services across different communication channels. The open and modular software gives access to digital maps, geocoding and routing functions and offers service providers a component-based application framework.

Qualcomm: QUALCOMM's gpsOne® position-location technology and QPoint® infrastructure solution provide the most complete, integrated location-based services solution available today, and enable dramatically more devices than any other GPS provider.
These companies have also offered tools, platforms and support to Challenge participants.

Previous Winners
Many previous winners have gone on to successfully develop and market their applications.

• Whereabouts™ (Clarity Communication Systems Inc.) allows parents to monitor and track the location of their children.  The knowledge that family members can instantly be located generates enormous peace of mind.

• Loc-Aid People (LOC-AID Technologies LLC) helps locate friends, children or family members. It also allows users to locate the closest restaurant or share their location information with others. 

• The InfoGation Corporation's Adeona™ full-featured navigation system provides real-time traffic, weather and petrol price information. The i-POI™ feature finds any near-by POI on the Internet via user provided key-word searches.

• Smarter Agent acquires a location from the user’s mobile phone and instantly delivers estate agent information such as sale prices, taxes and more directly to that phone.

• Bones In Motion offers an effortless way to wirelessly monitor, measure and motivate users toward their fitness goals using a GPS-enabled mobile phone.

• PhotoFinder™ (Networks In Motion, Inc) allows users to manage photos containing location tags, view them on a map and send to another phone or website along with navigation to the location where the picture was taken.

“The Wireless LBS Challenge was a seminal event for Networks In Motion and the LBS industry.  It brought cell phone based LBS to national attention, and helped launch an industry that will fundamentally change the way people travel and interact in a mobile environment,” said Stephen Petilli, Chairman and Executive Vice President of Business Development, Networks In Motion.

Awards Ceremony
14.00h Wednesday 15 February
The Gallery
Poble Esponyol de Montjuic
Barcelona

Poble Esponyol de Montjuic is five minutes walk from the show centre and has been taken over by 3GSM for a whole range of events.

About NAVTEQ
NAVTEQ is a leading provider of comprehensive digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, Internet-based mapping applications, and government and business solutions.  NAVTEQ creates the digital maps and map content that power navigation and location-based services solutions around the world. The Chicago-based company was founded in 1985 and has approximately 1,800 employees located in 127 offices in 21 countries. Its European headquarters are in Veldhoven, Netherlands. For more information, visit www.navteq.com.