InnoApps winners hack their way to the ultimate smart city apps
[Brussels, Belgium, February 5, 2015]: The best apps for smarter cities were selected at the final event of the InnoApps contest in Brussels yesterday. The winning teams of young app developers from Europe and China, chosen at a live pitching session following a two-day hackathon, receive cash prizes and mentoring to commercialise their app.
The competition, organised jointly by leading global ICT company Huawei and non-profit organisation European Young Innovators Forum (EYIF) in partnership with AIESEC in mainland China, challenged participants to design mobile applications contributing to making our cities smarter. Teams of two from Europe and China paired up thanks to an online platform and jointly developed their innovative mobile application during a two-day coding event in Brussels.
The first prize was awarded to Dawid Cieślak from Warsaw in Poland and Li Yanzhong from Guangzhou in China, who jointly developed COCOFFEE, an app enabling smart business networking. COCOFFEE will facilitate communication between participants at an event who have the same interests by connecting with their LinkedIn accounts.
The second prize went to Irman Abdic from Slovenia who lives in Munich, Germany, for his app Birdly, which will allow users to identify a bird by its song. Li Jiancheng from Beijing in China and Andrei-Tudor Diaconu from Romania came third. They presented AudioCity, an app project aimed at allowing museums to make their audio guides available in one single app.The winners of the first prize receive €20 000. The teams ranked second and third are awarded €10 000 and €5 000 respectively. All winning teams will receive one-to-one mentoring to help them commercialise their app.
"As an ICT leader with a long-term vision, we believe that nurturing young talent and fostering e-skills is one of the most important investments we can make," said Tony Graziano, Vice-President of Huawei’s EU Public Affairs Office. "Our training initiatives are part of our contribution as a responsible corporate citizen, but also a facet of our approach to staying on top of the innovation game." He also highlighted the need for joining forces across geographical boundaries to drive digital innovation.
"InnoApps, which empowers young innovators to build SMART City Digital solutions and demonstrates them in two of the largest economies, the EU and China, is an excellent way to address pressing urban challenges collaboratively by citizens of these zones who share these common concerns every day," said Kumardev Chatterjee, President of EYIF.
"There are problems and opportunities across the nation and around the world. These challenges call for entrepreneurial leadership among the young generation to not only understand them but to also take action about what's happening around us. The competition not only boosts ideas and technology-based solutions, but more importantly, it supports young leaders and entrepreneurs who can work on their strengths to explore their potential to make a positive impact on the world," stressed Zhang Xin, President of AIESEC in mainland China.
Now in its second year, the annual InnoApps challenge was launched to support young people in transforming their creative ideas into viable business projects and help them navigate an increasingly globalised ICT business environment. It directly supports the EU goal of creating a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy by 2020.
Find out more: www.innoapps.eu
