Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2011 are Go! Open for entries until midnight CET 12 June 2011

Yes, it’s that time of year it seems. For the third year, Mobile Monday London is proud to be working with Vodafone on the Vodafone Mobile Clicks start-up competition. With success stories like Roulette Cricket and Woobius from the UK under its belt, this competition can really give a leg-up to a mobile start-up. And it’s free to enter, so you really have nothing to lose by entering. ‘You’ve got to be in it to win it’ as someone once said. Vodafone lays no claim on your IP and the prize is a no-strings cash prize. Now, that’s refreshing!

What is it?

Vodafone Mobile Clicks is an international contest to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Already known as the biggest start-up competition of its kind, this year’s Vodafone Mobile Clicks is open to seven markets. Any start-up in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, Turkey or the United Kingdom that has a mobile site, service or application can compete for the €225,000 prize fund.

Judging will take place over three rounds. Firstly, each competing market will draw up a shortlist of their five best submissions, then a local winner will be selected. Lastly, all seven local winners will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC festival in the Netherlands on 15^th – 16^th September 2011, where the overall winner will be chosen.

This year’s high-profile judges include Peter Barry, Head of VC and Start-up at Vodafone Ventures; Paul Jozefak, Managing Partner at Mobile VC; Reshma Sohoni, Partner at Seedcamp; Rudy de Waele, founder of Mobile 2.0 Europe and dotopen; and Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group.

Judging criteria

Each judge will score entries based on five criteria:

1. Originality, creativity and innovativeness
2. Technical and operational feasibility
3. Economic and financial viability
4. Value to end-users
5. The quality of the management team (e.g. their experience, knowledge, skills, relationships)

This is a fantastic opportunity to gain expert feedback for your entry, both qualitatively and quantitatively from all of the jury members. And if your entry reaches the finals, then you’ll also benefit from PR and coverage at both national and European level. So it’s not just about the prize money (although that’s important too).

Entry criteria:

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2011 is open to all mobile-related start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations in the joining countries of this years' competition – UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Turkey.
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/business in the field of mobile internet products or services.
• Each participant may submit only one entry. Previous entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks are allowed to participate again.
• The enterprise/business cannot be older than 3 years since its inception. An enterprise or business older than 3 years may enter the competition provided that the concept entry will become a new entity (a holding may enter only ONE entity).
• The enterprise/business must have an annual turnover of less than €500k per annum.
• Concepts are not allowed (a demonstrable solution will be required).
• It is free to enter
• You will need to register a Vodafone developer account (if you don’t already have one) in order to enter the competition
• All entries must be received by midnight CET 12 June 2011.

Definition of “mobile”
What kind of entries are eligible for Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2011? Entries may be linked to the concept of mobile and mobile infrastructure in the most broad sense of the word and are not restricted to only mobile phones. Every device or infrastructure that is related to “mobility” may be considered to enter the competition. Think about mobile content, iPad apps, widgets, design, sites or services leveraging or integrating mobile technology.

Important:
At Vodafone we recognise that confidentiality plays a huge part in any organisation, especially in the start-up world. This is why Vodafone will ensure your entry is kept confidential and will not seek to own any IP (intellectual property) from your entry.

• All entries are confidential and will not be distributed outside of this competition.
• Vodafone does not seek to own any intellectual property in relation to entries for the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition.
• Any applications submitted as part of the competition can be used by Vodafone for distribution, advertising and promotion in relation to the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition.
• Please read the Terms and Conditions before you register. It consists of two parts:
  1. The competition (Please read this very carefully)
  2. Terms & Conditions specifically for Mobile Widgets (Only relevant in case you want to enter a widget for the competition)

If you still have some concerns about Vodafone Mobile Clicks, please contact: vmc2011@vodafone.com

If you have the inspiration and desire to be the best, then enter today! You can also follow progress of the competition on twitter.

Best of luck and get those entries in!

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 winners are announced

Here at Mobile Monday London, we have been waiting with baited breath to find out how the finalists got on at Picnic 2010 today, and in particular, our UK finalist, Roulette Cricket. We are delighted to announce the winner of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, the biggest competition of its kind, aimed at identifying and developing the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Cardmobili, which describes itself as 'consumer loyalty going mobile and social' was awarded the title today at PICNIC festival in Amsterdam and will receive the €100,000 1st place prize fund.

Fending off competition from 159 other entrants, Cardmobili won the top prize for its intuitive application that allows consumers and retailers to share the latest coupons and reward vouchers entirely via mobile handsets. Users can also pass on special offers directly to friends from their social networks. Once the app is downloaded, consumers can register all the loyalty cards they carry around in their wallet to receive vouchers and redeem rewards without waiting for a statement or update at the checkout.

The 12-strong team, made up of some of the brightest young software developers in Portugal, is one of enthusiasm and persistence. Having launched Cardmobili in beta last year, the team has worked hard to take the number of retail partners from 200 to 1,500. Already successful in Portugal, North America and elsewhere in Europe, Cardmobili will invest the prize money in marketing to further awareness about the company, and encourage sign ups amongst consumers and retail partners.

Helena Leite, CEO, Cardmobili said, "It has been such a rewarding experience to be part of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition. We've met so many like-minded developers with interesting innovations to share. Being declared the overall winner is an absolute honour. We've worked hard throughout the past two years and will only continue to do so, reinvesting our prize money to make Cardmobili an even better offering for retailers and consumers."

 

 

Second place in the competition was awarded to Roulette Cricket, who received the runner-up prize fund of €50,000.

Roulette Cricket is an intuitive application that brings cricket to users from around the world. The first app in the market of its kind, the games can be played individually or as a group. There is at least one interactive game every day. A perfect form of entertainment during or outside of the cricket season, the game offers play throughout the year covering tournaments that include Champions League, Test Matches and The Ashes. The 5-strong Roulette Cricket team is made up of some of the strongest talent in gaming, having worked for companies including Virgin Atlantic on in-flight entertainment. Since launch, the team has secured a successful partnership with the Daily Telegraph, with usage numbers currently standing at 140,000 unique users.

David Tharp, managing director, Roulette Cricket said, "It has been a fantastic and exciting competition to be part of for the whole team. Winning this prize not only means great things for Roulette Cricket but will drive further development of the app. The prize fund will significantly help us to grow our offering and introduce other sports to the app which include football, golf, baseball and sailing."

The final judging panel was represented by Sanjeet Matharu - Vodafone Group representative, Om Malik - GigaOm blog founder, Russell Buckley - Vice President Global Alliances Admob (and a regular visitor and speaker at Mobile Monday London), Rudy de Waele - Mobile 2.0 Europe founder, Robin Wauters - Plugg organiser and TechCrunch blogger, Paul Jozefak - Vice Chairman Neuhaus Partners, and David Leftley - Head of Venture Capital at Vodafone Ventures.

Congratulations to the winners and all the entrants. If you are interested in finding out more about the competition then please click here.

Roulette Cricket is going through to the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 final!

Vodafone today announces the four finalists of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, our competition to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. The four finalists represent companies working on field-worker remote reporting; mobile loyalty cards; mobile application lifecycle management and ‘2^nd screen’ gaming. They are: Akvo Phone (Netherlands); Cardmobili, (Portugal); MALCOM, (Spain) and Roulette Cricket (UK).

About the four finalists:

UK (Roulette Cricket): Part of a new wave of mobile entertainment, so-called ‘2nd screen gaming’ gives fans a new way to engage with their favourite sport. Roulette Cricket is designed to be played whilst watching live sport, either at the ground, on TV or online.

Portugal (Cardmobili): A comprehensive collection of membership and loyalty cards is gathered through crowd-sourcing as well as comprehensive searches of loyalty programs and then sent to the customer’s mobile phone. The digitalisation of opt-in loyalty cards, coupons and vouchers gives customers convenient and easy access to relevant purchase offers.

Netherlands (Akvo Phone): A mobile application that allows live field-reporting for development aid project workers. Akvo Phone allows reports including pictures, text, phone identity, geographic location (GPS) and time stamp to be remotely submitted, freeing up time for field workers to get on with their jobs.

Spain (MALCOM): A mobile application lifecycle management system which is a revolution both for publishers and developers. The service – accessed through a simple web interface – takes the complexity, time and cost out of managing, updating and rolling out mobile applications, making it much more straightforward for application developers to manage their work.

Each of the finalists beat off serious competition to reach the final, displaying key attributes in the following judging criteria:

· Originality, creativity and innovation

· Technical and operational feasibility

· Economic and financial viability

· Value to end-users

· Management team quality

The four finalists will now be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC* Festival in Holland on 24 September 2010, where the overall winners of the €150,000 total prize fund will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts.

Please vote for your favourite!

Ahead of the PICNIC presentations, members of the public are invited to cast their vote for the winner of Mobile Clicks 2010. At the live final, the overall result of the public vote will be counted alongside the votes of panel members to decide the winners. At the live final, the ranking from the public vote will carry equal weighting to the vote of one official panel member. Vote now by visiting http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote and help your favourite entry win Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010.

For further information about the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition, visit http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com

The panel members for the final in Amsterdam are: Om Malik – Founder, GigaOm, Russell Buckley - Vice President, Global Alliances Admob, Rudy de Waele – Founder, Mobile 2.0 Europe, Robin Wauters – Organizer, Plugg & TechCrunch blogger, Paul Jozefak – Managing Partner, Neuhaus Partners and David Leftley - Head of Venture Capital, Vodafone Ventures.

We wish all the finalists the best of luck and we’re especially flying the flag for our UK finalist, Roulette Cricket. Don’t forget to vote for your favourite – your votes really do count. http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote

Final countdown on Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010: Finalists share their thoughts

 

So the UK nominees going through to the 2nd round for Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 have been announced, with 20 mobile start-up companies selected from the UK, Spain, The Netherlands and Portugal vying for final prize money, a total of 150K Euros. We caught up with a few of the UK companies who have made the cut, to share in their excitement about being nominated.

The UK finalists include Little World Gifts, Milestone Planner, Movirtu, Roulette Cricket and Touchnote Postcards, who will learn on Monday 13 September which one of them has made it to the final round of the competition, and will attend PICNIC, where they’ll have their chance to pitch to win the cash prizes. We wanted to know a little more about the UK finalists, and to hear why they want to win and what they would do with the money, here’s what some of them had to say:

Little World Gifts

Katie Lips from Little World Gifts explained that they are delivering the world's most amazing 3D interactive virtual gifts on Facebook, iPhone & iPad. Little World Gifts is a dynamic UK based start-up that is recognised as having a game changing approach to virtual goods - namely that it harnesses mobile and web platforms together to deliver an engaging user experience that brands want to be part of.

“Our big idea is to transform virtual goods - to make them really exciting for users and for brands by harnessing the best mobile platforms. Winning would mean recognition that we're already doing cool stuff in this area; and it would help us to improve our platform and deliver mobile virtual goods for more partners,” she said.

And what about the money the winner gets? She said:

“We're serious about growing our business and we have the vision, the plan and the team to do just that. But we do need capital to help us grow to the next stage. We've already had seed investment from Vision and Media which has enabled us to build a first prototype, attract our first clients and prove the model. We made a small amount of seed funding go a long long way. We're very excited about our future plans and winning a prize in Vodafone Mobile Clicks would help us realise those goals sooner. “

Milestone Planner

Benjamin Ellis of Social Optic, the company behind Milestone Planner, describes the product as being an on-line collaborative planning application that acts as the project manager for mobile, distributed teams. It allows highly collaborative, real-time planning via a mobile or desktop web interface, so that project team members can check and update project milestones and tasks on the go. Stuck waiting for a plane? 5 minutes in between meetings? Team members can update the plans they are involved with, catch up with the latest changes in real-time, all from their mobile. Milestone Planner can also synchronise project dates to team members' calendars, track project changes, and automatically generate progress reports. It keeps everything on track and everyone up to date, and making life more pleasant and productive for mobile workers, wherever they are.

“Our idea is a simple one: Every business needs to work to a plan, even if that plan changes every day - and it often does in today's dynamic markets. Everyone one in the business needs to be working to the same version of the plan, with the ability to communicate changes and progress in real time. That's the problem we solve today with Milestone Planner,” he said. For the prize money? “We'd use it to accelerate our development, expand our charities support program, and speed the growth of Milestone Planner into the rest of Europe and beyond. Even more than that, the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition is the largest and most significant of it's kind and would bring Milestone Planner to the global stage and validate our success to date. We'd love to get through to the next round, to be inspired by the speakers and attendees at PICNIC, and compete alongside Europe's best mobile start ups.”

Touchnote Postcards

Raam Thakrar says that Touchnote Postcards is a startup that helps turn people's photos into real physical picture postcards. It's all about helping people share special moments – it's about sharing photos in a permanent and tangible way. They've got apps on most of the major platforms (Android, Symbian 3rd and 5th, iPhone and soon Windows Phone 7) and have a deal with Sony Ericsson that will see Touchnote on multiple handsets before the end of the year.

The company is excited to be getting recognition from Vodafone that they are actually onto something really interesting, and if they get the money?

“We're looking to extend and polish our offering - we have a lot of interesting ideas on how we can wow the customers and really show off the power of the handsets that we really want to implement!,” Raam said.

RouletteCricket

Dave Tharp said that RouletteCricket was born from a simple game of guessing where the next boundary will be scored in a game of cricket. And after playing the game for years they thought...there must be an app for that - right? Well when there wasn't they thought they’d build our own, with a generous helping of knowledge, passion and humour from our partners (and Mobile Monday London regulars) Future Platforms down in Brighton.

“Cricket is the first of a number of games the company has on our road-map build to serve up fun and engaging 2nd screen game-play to passionate fans, and while we think we've won already by being shortlisted, if we were lucky enough to win the big prize we would reinvest the money to launch more games into F1, Golf, Baseball & Football.” he said.

So that’s that then. Watch this space to see who gets through to the final.

Vodafone Mobile Clicks – 2nd round nominees announced

Well, it has been exciting this year. With over 50 entries for the UK this year, and the standard even better than last year (and last year was good), it was a tough gig to get to the final five from the UK. But somehow we did it.

The UK judges for this round included myself, Rafe Blandford from All About Symbian and a group of representatives from Vodafone’s developer marketing team. A special thank you goes to Mike Butcher and Elizabeth Varley from Techhub who looked after us so well this week for the final judging session. May I recommend the pizzas they order in for things like this. Ab-so-lute-ly delicious!

Anyway, I digress.

The jury selected the very best entries based on the 5 criteria mentioned below:

- Originality, creativity and innovation
- Technical and operational ability
- Economic and financial viability (i.e. the business case)
- Use case and end-user value
- The quality of the members of the (management) team (e.g. their experience, knowledge, skills, relationships)

And the UK nominees are (in alphabetical order)

• Little World Gifts Visit Website
• Milestone Planner Visit Website
• Movirtu Visit Website
• RouletteCricket Visit Website
• Touchnote Postcards Visit Website

Hurrah! Well done to everyone and we really do wish all our UK nominees the best of luck. I’m glad I don’t have to choose who goes through to the final at Picnic – it’s a really tough choice.

And for the other countries…. there’s some stiff competition here by the way, they are:

Spain:

• MALCOLM Visit Website
• No Excuse Accounting Visit Website
• Oonair Visit Website
• vFacer Visit Website
• Wannataxi No Website Available

The Netherlands:

• AED4 Visit Website
• Akvo Phone Visit Website
• Smart HomeCare Visit Website
• Snapje Visit Website
• Track and Protect Visit Website

Portugal:

• Cardmobili Visit Website
• Cube Visit Website
• Eunoia Visit Website
• Live City Visit Website
• MobilePLUX Visit Website

Many thanks to all participating startups for their time and effort to enter. It’s really exciting to see these companies and ideas unfold.

More details about this announcement can be seen here.

Oh, and if you’re interested to know who’s been judging all the entries, then here’s a list of the judges for you:

For Spain:

- Belen Aparicio - Marketing Specialist (Vodafone ES)
- Carles Ferreiro - Co-founder MoMo Barcelona & Madrid
- Albert Cuesta - Technology Columnist at CanalPDA

For the Netherlands:

- Jochem Heerkens - Head of Postpaid Terminals Marketing (Vodafone NL)
- Marc Fonteijn - Chairman MoMo Amsterdam
- Peter Robinett - Owner of Mobile DevCamp website/database

For Portugal:

- Nuno Inácio - Product Manager (Vodafone PT)
- Vitor Domingos - Founder Mobile Monday Portugal
- Luís Silva - CEO Wit Software

For the United Kingdom:

- Mike Eaton - Head of Content (Vodafone UK)
- Helen Keegan - Co-organizer Mobile Monday London
- Rafe Blandford - Blogger allaboutsymbian.com

Global jury members:

- Rudy de Waele - Founder Mobile 2.0 Europe
- Yuri van Geest - Co-organizer Vodafone Mobile Clicks

Win a free place to exhibit at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, February 2011

The Digital Communications KTN, working in association with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), is pleased to announce a competition open to UK-based SMEs with an innovative new mobile or wireless solution or product.

On offer are free places to showcase your solution or product on the UKTI stand, located on the Avenida at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona from 14 - 17 February 2011. This is your chance to introduce your high technology product to the more than 60,000 key industry decision makers that are expected to attend.

How to enter: If you would like to take part in this competition please summarise in no more than 500 words:

• the nature of your new solution or product,
• its value proposition and benefit to the customer,
• and why you believe your company should be awarded a place to showcase it at next year’s Mobile World Congress.

Summaries should be sent to info@dcktn.org.uk and arrive no later than 5:00pm on Friday, 3 September 2010.

A panel representing the Digital Communications KTN and UKTI will assess all submissions received by this date. Up to twenty short listed companies will then be given the opportunity to present their products at finals held at locations determined by the geographic spread of the short-listed entries – and one of these finals will be in October in London, organised by Mobile Monday London.

Previous winners include Movirtu, Palringo, CuteCircuit and Touchtype.

Registration for these events will be free, and will be open to all members of the Digital Communications KTN on a first come first served basis. They will provide an excellent opportunity for the short-listed companies to draw their products to the attention of a wider audience. A panel of judges will select companies from those presenting at the finals to each be the recipient of a free place to showcase its product on the UKTI Stand at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Keep up to date with the work of the Digital Communications KTN by becoming a member. Membership of the Digital Communications KTN is free, and participants are encouraged to register as members at http://www.dcktn.org.uk . If you have any questions or comments please email us at info@dcktn.org.uk.

And if you’re entering this competition, and you’re a start-up from the UK, Portugal or the Netherlands, less than three years old, then don’t forget to enter the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition too for a chance to win Euro 100,000 or Euro 50,000. More details about the competition here. Closing date 22 August 2010.

 

Technorati Tags: DCKTN,UKTI,vodafone mobile Clicks,competition,mobile internet,start-up,SME

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 are go!

STOP PRESS: The competition is now open to entrants from Spain as well as the UK, The Netherlands and Portugal. Closing date remains the same at 22 August 2010.

~~~~~~~~~~

And it’s bigger and better than last year and Mobile Monday London is very pleased to be supporting this year’s Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition.

You can read some bits and pieces about last year’s event here and here's some excellent thoughts and advice from last year's runners-up, Woobius, on what they got out of entering the competition. There's also a little video from them you can watch too which is worth a look.

So, back to this year's competition. The aim is to find the best mobile internet start-up across the UK, Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands and reward the winner with Euro 100,000 and the runner-up with Euro 50,000.

The competition opens today and closes on 22nd August at midnight. But please don’t leave your entry until the last minute. All entries need to be completed in English and you do need to adhere to the Terms and Conditions. The actual competition Ts & Cs are only a few pages – the rest of the document relates to the Ts & Cs for Vodafone’s Widget platform which you must also agree to. Yes, it’s a long document, but please give it the once over to make sure you’re happy with it. I’ve read it and I can’t see anything particularly nasty in there, but I’m not an expert on these things, nor am I a lawyer so don’t just take my word for it. [Update: These have been shortened.]

The application form is pretty straight forward but I highly recommend that you take some thought before you fill it in. There is limited space, and limited time for the judges to read and take in what you’re writing, so it means you need to to think through clearly what your proposition is, describe the features but make sure you also state the benefits as these are what make you attractive to customers. All entries are confidential.

You can only enter once and once you’ve entered, you may not amend your entry.

Entry is now open at http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/

The 5 judging criteria are:

• originality, creativity and innovation;
• technical and operational feasibility;
• economic and financial viability;
• value to end-users;
• and finally, on the quality of the management team.

If you have specific questions or concerns, please get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to answer your questions or put you in touch with someone who can.

Entry Criteria:

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 is open to any individual aged 18 or over resident in the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain or the United Kingdom and to Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/ business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up in this context means that the enterprise/business must be less than 3 years old.
• Each participant may submit only one entry.
• Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 and 2009 may resubmit to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010.
• There is no charge for entry

There are three stages to the contest:

1. We will collate all the entries and the local jury will review them to get to a shortlist of 5.
2. We will then review the shortlist to find a single company or individual to put forward to the final.
3. The UK finalist will present at the final to be held at Picnic in Amsterdam on 24 September 2010 alongside the finalists from The Netherlands and Portugal.

Last year we were able to put three companies through to the final at Picnic. They were Audioboo, Rummble and Woobius. Woobius came third and walked away with a Euro 25,000 prize. And Audioboo and Rummble have both done very well since last year’s contest, both recently raising funds and growing their respective businesses.

We asked all our UK finalists from VMC2009 what they thought of the competition last year and whether or not it was worth entering.

Mark Rock from Audioboo tells us: "Vodafone Mobile Clicks was one of the freshest competitions of 2009. To have a mobile network operator embrace the start-up community in this way was fantastic. The quality of the judging through 3 rounds was excellent, if a little gruelling, And the support & help given all the way through to being taken to Amsterdam to compete in the finals (we didn't win, by the way) was above and beyond the normal competition process. Vodafone Mobile Clicks is worth the effort"

And Andrew Scott from Rummble said: "Vodafone put considerable energy behind the Mobile Clicks competition which definitely contributed to our profile .. it was also a lot of fun!"

Bob Leung, CEO of Woobius tells us 'Vodafone Mobile Clicks helped us take an idea from concept to working prototype, with the assistance of an expert jury, over several rounds. We used the prize money to take the product to market, and now we are working with leading players in the construction industry. We're building them their very own Woobius Eye, that they use to share information live between desktops and mobile phones, between offices and construction sites. It's a great success. The prize money really helped us to advance our idea over our competitors and we urge anyone with a good idea to enter this fantastic competition.'

And here’s a couple of pictures of the Woobius team with their prize cheque. Well done Woobius!

So, get the thinking caps on and get entering. The Mobile Monday London team wishes you the best of luck!

The official press release is below.

VODAFONE MOBILE CLICKS 2010 COMPETITION ANNOUNCED

Search to find best mobile internet start-up across three European markets is on

27^th July, 2010. Vodafone today announced the launch of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, a competition to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 will run across three European markets - Netherlands, Portugal and UK.

The contest is open to any start-up with a great idea for a mobile site, service or application and entrants can compete for the €150,000 prize fund by submitting entries to http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/. The competition is open now, and the closing date for entries is midnight, August 22nd, 2010.

Each entry will be judged on five criteria: originality, creativity and innovation; technical and operational feasibility; economic and financial viability; value to end-users; and finally, on the quality of the management team.

The judging will take place over three rounds. Each competing market will draw up a shortlist of their five best local submissions, a winner will be selected from each shortlist and finally all local winners will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on September 24^th, 2010, where the overall winner will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts, including Om Malik, founder of the GigaOM Network, Russell Buckley, VP Global Alliances at Admob, and Rudy de Waele, Founder of dotopen, the Mobile Premier Awards and co-founder of the Mobile 2.0 Conferences in San Francisco and Barcelona.

Launched in 2008, Vodafone Mobile Clicks is a Vodafone initiative designed to accelerate innovation in the mobile internet sector across Europe. It is now the biggest mobile start-up competition of its kind.

“Through initiatives like Vodafone Mobile Clicks and our wider developer outreach programme, we’re finding ways to help stimulate, grow and commercialise the innovation that is at the heart of the mobile ecosystem,” said Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group. “Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market. I’m excited to be judging another year of inspiring entries from entrants across Europe.”

Previous Vodafone Mobile Clicks winners include Layar, an Amsterdam-based company who developed an augmented reality service that allows mobile customers to see information on nearby points of interest – for example houses for sale, popular bars and tourist information – by simply looking through a phone’s camera lens. The service launched in June 2009, and throughout 2010 the platform has seen 20% month-on-month growth. Layar has recently announced a strategic partnership with phone manufacturers LG and Samsung.

For further information about the Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 competition, or to enter your company, go to: http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/

Technorati Tags: Vodafone Mobile Clicks,vodafone,competition,start-up,mobile internet,mobile applications,entrepreneurship

Vote for your favourite start-up and help them win Vodafone Mobile Clicks

We're coming to  the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.

The jury for the final is Richard Titus, Lee Epting, Rudy de Waele, Vincent Everts & Heike Scholz.

But it's not just down to the jury. Mobile Monday London members have a part to play in the process too. There has already been public voting which closes this Friday which is open to anyone http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote/ but in addition, we have been asked to create a poll so you can choose your favourite start-up and who you would give a prize too. The votes from Mobile Monday London members will be weighted more heavily than the public vote, so your vote really does count.

I've opened up the poll over at Yahoo Groups (I couldn't find a better way to run it so that it was one vote per person). If you're not already signed up to Yahoo Groups, then please sign up and make sure you fill in the bit that says why you want to join the group so we know you're genuine.
Our friends at Mobile Monday Amsterdam are going through a similar process and have already been busy voting.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/polls

There is just one vote so use it wisely, but please DO vote! The poll will be open for a week only and will close on 22nd September in advance of the finalists heading off to Amsterdam.

And in case you're wondering who the companies are and would like a bit more info, then here you go...

Woobius http://www.woobius.com/ (UK)
A service for the construction industry allowing them to collaborate by gathering all info & data in one place with access for the team. With the help of Woobius Eye for mobile, it is possible to solve problems & reduce build costs & the number of mistakes made.

Rummble http://www.rummble.com/ (UK)
A service that recommends content to the user, based on people with the same interests and hobbies. By sharing information and creating a trust network, the customer will get more interesting & relevant content.

Mobypicture http://www.mobypicture.com/ (NL)
Share photos, videos & audio with friends at social network sites like hyves, facebook and twitter with one press of a button.

Audioboo http://audioboo.fm/ (UK)
Directly record audio (eg interviews or quotes) & share it with social network sites like twitter and facebook. The last recorded, most popular and featured "boos" from the community can be played as well.

Layar http://layar.com/ (NL)
A browser that uses 'augmented reality' so a user can see what is in their surroundings by looking through the camera of their handset.

MyNameIsE http://www.mynameise.com/ (NL)
Connecting people on & offline by gathering their profiles on various social networks in one place. These can be shared in real life via mobile or bespoke device, The Connector.

Thanks everyone and please get voting!

Technorati Tags: Mobile Monday London,vote,Vodafone Mobile Clicks,competition,start-up,Rummble,Woobius,MobyPicture,Audioboo,Layar,MyNameIsE

Vodafone Mobile Clicks Competition Deadline: 22nd May 2009

Breaking News 13 May 09: The deadline for your entry for UK participants is no longer 14th May 2009 and is now Friday 22nd May 2009.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yes, it's not long to go now to get your entry in for the Vodafone Mobile Clicks Competition. There's just about a week to go so there's still time. We've tried to keep the application process simple and you can even be pre-start-up and just have a great idea to apply.

We also wanted to reassure you over who owns the IP and any confidentiality concerns so to make things clear...

• Confidentiality is secured. All people involved are informed and committed to this confidentiality.
• The rights of the idea will be with the owner/submitter.
• With your entry, we don't need every single detail - just enough detail to give us a clear picture of the WHAT and the HOW of the mobile service.
• We respect the situations in which the start-ups do not have a patent yet. See our very very strict confidentiality claims. Above and in the Ts & Cs.
• Ideas will NOT be shared with competitors or other companies. Only the jury and the organizing team(s) involved will have ALL the registration data (UK and NL). The Press and Other Startups in this contest will ONLY have RESTRICTED access to only a few Registration Fields (e.g. Name, Contact Details, Short Description of Service).

If you have any further questions, then please refer them to Helen Keegan. Also have a look at our previous blogpost on the competition criteria.

Good luck and let's see what Britain's talented mobile developers have to offer!

p.s. you can follow the competition on twitter and we have set up a facebook event too for it. Oh and Mobile Monday London is also in twitter if you hadn't spotted us already.

Vodafone Mobile Clicks Competition now open to the UK with a prize fund of €150, 000

Vodafone UK and Mobile Monday London today announce Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009, a competition to inspire start-up businesses and individual developers to create and deliver a new mobile site or service – all creative ideas are welcome.

Mobile Clicks 2009 is run jointly with Vodafone Netherlands. Anyone wishing to enter can visit http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/. The final will be held in Amsterdam in September and will feature three finalists from each country. The first three winners will be awarded a total sum of €150,000.

Last years’ Mobile Clicks’ winners included Nulaz, a location-based social networking service merging Google Maps and Facebook to allow people to see where their friends are, share locations and view local information, Tipspot a new online city guide service and Map the Gap, an idea-sharing application for mobile phones.

The competition consists of three selection rounds, running from April to September 2009. The panel of judges will include mobile internet experts from Vodafone as well as other industry leaders. The winner will be announced in Amsterdam in September this year.

The rules are pretty simple:

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 is open to any individual residing in the Netherlands or the UK from the age of 18 years and to Dutch and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up means that the enterprise/business cannot be older than three years since its inception.
• Each participant may submit only one entry.
• (Previous Dutch) Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 are allowed to participate again in Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009

Registration for this contest is now open. Registration for the Netherlands will close at April 30th, 2009 and registration for the UK will close on May 14th, 2009.

For more on last years’ winners, please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owuDNC-IAdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CMXW7eLrZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUqPmNnIXj0

We’ll have more details about the competition up on the Mobile Monday London website as and when they happen and we’ll have some Vodafone people on hand at our upcoming events too. In the meantime, head over to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 and see how you can get your hands on some of that €150, 000 prize fund to kick start your business and get your service to market. The closing date for UK entries is 14th May 2009 so get your thinking caps on. Good luck!

Update - 6 May 2009

Some people have raised concerns over IP and confidentiality so we would like to reassure you.

Confidentiality is secured. All people involved are informed and committed to this confidentiality.
The rights of the idea will be with the owner/submitter. With your entry, we don't need every single detail - just enough detail to give us a clear picture of the WHAT and the HOW of the mobile service. We respect the situations in which the start-ups do not have a patent yet. See our very very strict confidentiality claims. Above and in the Ts & Cs on http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/ .
Ideas will NOT be shared with competitors or other companies. Only the jury and the organizing team(s) involved will have ALL the registration data (UK and NL). The Press and Other Startups in this contest will ONLY have RESTRICTED access to only a few Registration Fields (e.g. Name, Contact Details, Short Description of Service).

Technorati Tags: competition,Vodafone,innovation,start-up,business,mobile,MoMolondon,MoMoLo,Mobile Monday