Glenn Letham
Tuesday, 04 October 2005
 Recentlyat the CTIA Wireless IT & entertainment conference in San Francisco,
CA. Navteq and sponsors kicked off the 2006 Global LBS Challenge. What makes this
years event special is the doubling of the challenge to include a North American
and European challenge. To entice developers, Navteq is putting up more than $800,000
in cash and prizes with the grand prize winner taking home $50k cash and $100k
in data licenses. SymbianOne's Glenn Letham was pleased to have been in attendance.At the event, attendees and developers were treated to an introduction of the
judges, and had a chance to discuss the tools and application developer programs
that are available to those taking part in the challenge.
The Cool Part...
The very cool part of this year's challenge is the fact that 2 Challenges are
scheduled: A North American Challenge (winner selected at CTIA in April, 2006)
and the European Challenge (winners selected at 3GSM in Feb. 2006)
More from the 2006 LBS Challenge Kick-off event...
At the Challenge kick-off, Winston Guillory, senior VP of Navteq welcomed the
crowd and provided a short state-of the-industry recap of the location-based services
market. Guillory noted how LBS have matured and that as a result, Navteq is now
serving some 7 billion maps and route planning transactions annually. Customers
are from every corner of the business market and include such names as Fed-Ex
and UPS to name a few. He noted that in North America there are now roughly 10
cellular GPS solutions available to customers and that leading carrier Sprint/Nextel
has provided a big boost to the market with their clever and aggressive marketing
of LBS to their customers. Drivers of LBS include:
- Availability of Location technologies
- Memory capacity
- Device convergence
- Robust mobile platforms
Market drivers such as robust developer tools and the commercialization of applications
have made this the right time to issue an LBS Challenge! For the first time, this
year there will be 2 challenges with separate prizes and separate winners. Each
LBS Challenge will see creative and hot applications showcased and offered to
carriers note: members from leading wireless carriers make up the panel of judges.
A big carrot to developers considering taking up the LBS Challenge is the access
to these carrier reps, additionally, representatives from venture capital firms
will also be in attendance. Perhaps the biggest benefit though is the fact an
application that wins in any given category is essentially getting a stamp of
approval and validation from the industry this is huge!
Panel of Judges
This past spring at CTIA Wireless in New Orleans, representatives from leading
wireless carriers, mobile device manufacturers, and other leading wireless businesses
made up a panel of judges in the LBS Challenge. Once again, an esteemed panel
of judges has been put together to judge the 2006 LBS Challenge. Representatives
on the panel come from all segments of the LBS value chain and include a group
that is dedicated to making a large commitment of their time. Four judges are
once again returning, with panel made up of representatives from the following
companies:
Battery Ventures, Hatch Ventures, Nokia, Sprint/Nextel, US Cellular, Yankee Group,
Verizon, and Bell Canada.
Panel of judges for the 2006 LBS Challenge
The judges will select applications in 4 categories, winning applications being
chosen based on excellence in utility and usability. With upwards of 200 applications
likely expected to be entered in the Challenge, the first round of judging will
serve to whittle the group down to a manageable number of semi-finalists grouped
into the 4 categories:
-Business applications
-Entertainment & Leisure
-Navigation
-Social Networking
Created in 2003, the LBS Challenge has served to provide validation to the ideas
of numerous developers and served as a forum to showcase excellence in LBS solutions.
The challenge stimulates the proliferation of location-services by bringing together
leaders in the mobile arena this year the LBS Challenge will divide and conquer
by expanding to include a North American and European Challenge. Some key dates
follow:
-registration ends December 2, 2005
-registration forms must be received by December, 9, 2005
-application entries must be submitted by January 27, 2006 (North America)
-application entries must be submitted by December 22, 2005 (Europe)
-application submissions must be received by Feb 3, 2006
-Winners in European challenge to be announced Feb 13-16, 2006 at 3GSM Congress,
Barcelona, Spain.
-Winners of North American Challenge to be announced at CTIA Wireless, April
5-7, 2006 in Las Vegas, NV. Official judging, April 3-4, 2006.
The LBS Challenge is sponsored by a group of companies all of whom offer location
enabling solutions and mobile platforms. Developers are encouraged to take advantage
of tools and resources offered by these sponsoring companies. Some of the enabling
solutions that will be used include:
Autodesk Location Logic - locationservices.autodesk.com
Developers will gain access to a commercial-grade hosted Location Logic system
and will receive technical and system support. Applications connect to Location
Logic through OpenLS-compliant APIs as well as device based APIs. For more information
visit, http://locationservices.autodesk.com/navteqchallenge/
Telcontar Drill Down Server - Telcontar powers the one of the most cutting-edge location-based services
provided by the world's best-known Internet and wireless companies, including
Ask Jeeves, Google, Motorola Viamoto, TeleNav and Yahoo!. As part of the NAVTEQ
Global LBS Challenge, Telcontar will provide developer applicants with use of
the company's powerful Drill Down Server(TM) (DDS) geospatial platform, which
is available for shared use via the Telcontar Developer Zone. With the Telcontar
Developer Zone, Global LBS Challenge participants can quickly prototype and develop
customized applications using NAVTEQ's map data for North America. http://www.telcontar.com/developers
ESRI ArcWeb Services - ArcWeb Services offer wireless 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. http://www.esri.com/lbschallenge.com
Networks in Motion NAVBuilder NAVBuilder(TM) enables developers to enhance their applications with location-based
features including navigation, local directories, maps, directions, and more.
NAVBuilder offers a BREW extension or J2ME library for mobile applications, and
a WEB interface for location-enabling web applications. NIM supports developers
with carrier-grade network infrastructure and available premium training and support.
Contestants can sign-up to use NIM's NAVBuilder tools at: http://www.networksinmotion.com/products/navbuilder.html
Nokia C++ and Java development tools available via forum.nokia.com and through various
Symbian OS APIs. LBS applications are supported across Nokia platforms via JSR-179,
the Location API for the Java(TM) 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME(TM)). A separate
collection of native APIs is provided for Series 60 and Series 80 phones, to enable
native applications to utilize location features
Each of the sponsoring companies maintains a developer program and offers tools,
documentation, and many other resources to developers that wish to build their
LBS applications using their solutions.
Jumpstarting LBS developers are encouraged to submit their non-commercial applications
to the Challenge. The competition will be heated once again as more than 80 developers
have already registered! $800k in cash and prizes are waiting, however, the big
prize is likely the recognition and validation that the winner will receive from
the industrywinning the LBS Challenge is truly the stamp of approval that will
launch a developer on his way. Andrew Graham, CEO of BIM last years LBS Challenge
winner - has noted that validation was the big prize. Numerous opportunities for
funding have arisen; theyve established many partnerships and validated partnerships
that already existed.
Some Successes spawned out of the LBS Challenge to date:
3 developers integral in a carrier launch
One company embedded into Nextel device
1 company featured on a Canadian deck
VC's are interested in LBS and the interest is Global. Consumer and enterprise
applications are in demand while the anabling technologies are now in place. The
mobile handset(terminal) is viewed as the 3rd screen and heightened consumer demand
for location-enabled applications and services is at an all time high. Do you
have what it takes? You'll never know unless you enter the LBS Challenge... Good
Luck.
Robert Gordine, Navteq issues a Challenge to attendees at the kick-off event
For more info see http://www.lbschallenge.com
For more information about the NAVTEQ Global
Other relevant links:
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