Save the environment, lift spirits, improve productivity, educate and contribute to a healthy lifestyle: Nokia wants 2010 to be a year of good ideas that make a difference in peoples' lives. Forum Nokia recently announced Calling All Innovators 2010, an international application development contest designed to inspire creativity and change.
Calling All Innovators 2010 features four categories for submissions that enhance the use of Nokia mobile devices in real-world scenarios:
Eco/Being Green: applications that help to save the planet with innovative, eco-friendly uses.
Productivity: applications that make your life easier, and help you to be more efficient, such as utilities, business, or personal finance applications.
Life Improvement: applications that positively affect the daily lives of people living in developing countries by using the prevalence of mobile devices to teach children and illiterate adults critical skills, and agriculture health.
Entertainment: applications that bring out your inner rock star, and show off the coolest multimedia features, including music, multimedia and games - because mobile also has to be about having fun!
Forum Nokia has therefore teamed up with Sesame Workshop, the producers behind Sesame Street, for the education subcategory of the life improvement category to encourage developers to create and offer applications to teach early literacy on Nokia devices to communities around the world. Sesame Workshop will offer guidance during the judging process and work with select developers to further enhance relevant projects.
"With Forum Nokia's community - over four and a half million developers strong - we're challenging those particularly in emerging markets to create educational tools that make a positive impact," said Jeffrey Fleishman, assistant vice president for Media Distribution Business Development, Sesame Workshop. "Our goal is to find some partners with which we can work to extend the power of Sesame Street to new platforms and places."
The collaboration will encourage developers to create educational applications, and possibly utilise the Sesame Street characters, for consumers around the world. As Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary, this partnership helps to extend its "longest street in the world" into the digital one. With an expertise in using media to reach children, the non-profit is looking to mobile as the newest distribution channel of literacy-based content through accessible mass media.
One example was the regional Calling All Innovators Africa contest which took place from July 2009 and the winners were announced in early December 2009. The Calling All Innovators Africa competition called for South African and African developers to create locally relevant applications and solutions for the Ovi Store. For more information on the Calling All Innovators Africa contest winner’s announcement please visit this link http://www.nokiaconnect.co.za/news-release/11/nokia-calling-all-innovators-winners-announced
More details about all the categories for Calling All Innovators, special prizes and judges can be found on the contest web site at www.callingallinnovators.com.
Submissions from developers for the 2010 Calling All Innovators contest will be accepted starting on the 1st of February 2010. The submission deadline is the 18th of May 2010.
About Sesame Workshop
Sesame Workshop is the non-profit educational organization that revolutionized children's television programming with the landmark Sesame Street. The Workshop produces local Sesame Street programs, seen in over 140 countries, and other acclaimed shows to help bridge the literacy gap including The Electric Company and Pinky Dinky Doo. Beyond television, the Workshop produces content for multiple media platforms on a wide range of issues including literacy, health and military deployment. Initiatives meet specific needs to help young children and families develop critical skills, acquire healthy habits and build emotional strength to prepare them for lifelong learning. Learn more at www.sesameworkshop.org
About Forum Nokia
Nokia's global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com
Nokia has today completed the acquisition of Gainspeed, a California-based start-up specializing in DAA (Distributed Access Architecture) solutions..
Nokia Technologies today announced the launch of a new program to enable innovators to create virtual reality experiences that demonstrate the full..