- What is NAVTEQ doing at CommunicAsia?
- Why is NAVTEQ focusing on the Asian market?
- More about the finals and awards of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge APAC.
- How has winning the LBS Challenge helped previous winners?
What is NAVTEQ doing at CommunicAsia?
NAVTEQ is now in its second year of attendance at CommunicAsia. It is one of the key wireless-focused events in APAC, and importantly, draws attendees from throughout the region.
We utilize this event in part as the culmination of the Asia track for the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge. We will have all of the regional semifinalists in our booth showcasing their applications throughout the event, and present our APAC awards ceremony following our final judging on 17 June at 3:30pm.
In addition, we are proud to present a full showcase of NAVTEQ’s product and service offerings in our stand at the event (3L2-07), including areas that will highlight:
- Pedestrian experience: an integrated package of pedestrian-centric content that enables mobile consumers to orient themselves and navigate efficiently by foot and via public transit systems.
- Driving experience: an overview on content available today or on the immediate horizon that brings clarity to driving.
- NAVTEQ’s portal solutions: enables a cohesive end-user experience across web, PC and mobile devices, leveraging and integrating NAVTEQ core products (Map, Location Portal, Traffic and Content Store).
- NAVTEQ® map coverage: NAVTEQ maps span 77 countries and territories on six continents.
- NAVTEQ Network for Developers™ (NN4D): a dynamic online web portal and global community that provides developers and business partners with the technical and business support needed to build, showcase and launch innovative location-enabled solutions.
The stand will also include product displays and kiosks with several of our customers and partners, including dedicated demo kiosks for each LBS Challenge contestant to demonstrate their application. NAVTEQ will also have a separate presentation theater in its booth that will be used for 15-minute presentations on various LBS topics by NAVTEQ speakers, LBS Challenge contestants, and sponsors.
We are also pleased that, Marc Naddell, Vice President of Partner & Developer Programs, has been invited to be a keynote speaker at the event:
“The Future of Mobile Application Adoption”: NAVTEQ’s views on some key topics around mobile applications: next-generation mobile using LBS, strategies for commercial adoption, easing developer pain points, existing and new business models, some interesting projects, new applications and services.
Date: Wednesday, June 17
Time: 14:05pm
Location: Conference Halls A & B, Singapore Expo
Why is NAVTEQ focusing on the Asian market?
NAVTEQ is capitalising on over 20 years of experience in providing digital map coverage for APAC countries. We are focused on bringing the highest quality data to each country incorporating unrivaled depth of content. What is new to each nation, but not new to NAVTEQ, is a focus on providing truly navigable coverage that includes verifying data implicitly. This is the huge advantage NAVTEQ brings to Singapore, India and other APAC countries where interest in navigation and location-based solutions is growing.
NAVTEQ has broad map coverage in the region. Today our Asia Pacific maps include nearly 5 million kilometers of roads that cover nearly 2.5 billion people. We have full coverage for Singapore, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, and via our joint venture company NAV2; China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Additionally we continue to aggressively expand our coverage in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan. In India alone, we now cover just over 1 billion people, with more than 40 major cities verified to meet our highest level quality.
In addition to quality coverage, we are also expanding our portfolio of content in the region. We have 3D landmarks in all countries and are introducing and expanding additional visual content such as Junction View Images and 3D City Models. Visual content is of particular importance in countries like India where our research indicates many travelers route by landmarks rather than addresses.
We will also be announcing a new and innovative visual content product at CommunicAsia, with data initially available in Australia, followed by regional launches in Europe and North America later this year.
NAVTEQ Discover Cities™ has grown in importance in this region. We now enable pedestrian navigation in 11 cities across 6 countries: Bangkok, Bangladore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Mumbai, New Dehli, Singapore, and Sydney. NAVTEQ Discover Cities helps pedestrians navigate entirely on foot or using all types of public transport. Pedestrian navigation requires an extensive set of features including pavements and pedestrian-only tunnels, bridges, passageways, stairs, escalators, and lifts. All this is also linked to a wide range of public transport information covering buses, trams, underground trains, and monorails. In places like Bangkok, Vancouver, and Venice this information even includes the location of water taxi stands.
To round out our offerings in the region we also have a broad portfolio of point of interest (POI) content, including the recently announced Lonely Planet for NAVTEQ Travel Guide. We are enabling high value functionality such as lane assist with our Extened Lanes and alert features with products such as NAVTEQ Camera Alert.
At every stage, we focus on creating accurate, precise data to be used in a wide range of applications—a process which adheres to a single global specification that makes it easier for developers to build consistent LBS applications across different localities. This point is very important for developers with a global vision, as they can develop their application without having to consider the effects of handling data in other regions of the world. NAVTEQ employs approximately 1000 geographic analysts globally who drive millions of miles annually in order to capture and validate the road network and location-based content as it exists in the real world. Operating from 190 offices in 39 countries this local presence, including NAVTEQ throughout APAC, allows us to be constantly aware of changes to local road networks to provide the highest quality map data that adheres to this single global specification. Our build process includes quality testing of over 80,000 data sources, advanced technology such as multi-view video cameras and PDA-based tools with touch screens, pen tablets and joy sticks to collect navigable attributes such as turn restrictions and one-ways, as well as other proprietary tools through which our geographic analysts apply over 1,000 validation tests globally – mostly in the field.
Our local field teams add local knowledge. These people on the ground can build relationships with local governments, chamber of commerce, and building commissions so that they can find out about new additions (such as subdivisions, access roads, and restrictions) before they are even publicly available. This allows us to able to constantly be aware of changes to local road networks and ensuring the highest quality map data.
Asia is becoming a developer hotbed with countries like India and China growing the number of software developers almost exponentially. Given this trend, we want to showcase our developer support program and global community, NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D), at one of the region’s biggest industry events to increase the awareness overall of NN4D resources available for LBS developers, recruit new developers to NN4D to cover the rapidly increasing interest in LBS for mobile and drive interest for participation in next year’s NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge.
NAVTEQ map data are platform agnostic and can be accessed from any platform and any device. NN4D provides free sample map data and sample LBS content, access to leading platforms, tools, and application programming interfaces (APIs), in addition to the regular services you will expect from any developer program such as technical documentation, white papers, developer support, webinars, discussion forums, and more. Join NN4D today – it’s free.
More about the finals and awards of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge APAC.
Finals
The final judging of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge APAC will be held on 15 June. The APAC judges − representing a broad spectrum of the value chain – will evaluate and pick a winner from a strong field of 13 contestants.
We have 11 judges confirmed:
- Valerie Cheng, Creative Director, Arc Worldwide Singapore
- Vira Chang, Manager, E Service, ASUS
- Kunal Bajaj, Managing Director, BDA Connect (India)
- Thomas M. Owen, Vice President, Wireless Development & Alliances, deCarta
- Shawn Chui, Assistant Technology Manager, Solution Application Planning, HTC Corp.
- Chin Yook Siong, CTO, Global Technology Solution, IBM Solutions and Services
- Prof. Y.C. Heng, CEng FIET, General Director, International Business Center, ITRI
- Kenny Mathers, Head of APAC Developer Relations, Forum Nokia Asia
- Hyun-Yong Park, Manager, Content Planning Group, Samsung
- Terence Lai, Director, Mobile Advertising, Content & Portal Products, SingTel
- Liu Peng, Head of Sony Ericsson Developer World China
Thirteen applications have been selected to move on to Final Judging in Singapore. The Global LBS Challenge is a proven trend setter and a way to get traction for new technologies, platforms, handset features and new use cases for LBS. This year, the APAC region has surfaced new uses for mobile navigation, location-based imaging, advertising, social networking, gaming, and making use of a handset’s motion sensor – all great examples of how LBS can be used as an enabler for a richer mobile experience.
The APAC semifinalists are:
- 3 Door Trading Pvt. Ltd, India: Bargain Seeker allows businesses and individuals to offer discounted products to consumers.
- 3 Door Trading Pvt. Ltd, India: Services Seeker allows consumers to connect with potential service providers based on their location.
- MakeMyTrip.com, India: Shout Out! helps travelers to connect and share information with other travelers.
- Nano Equipment Pte Ltd, Singapore: Geo-tagged Mobile Video Broadcast takes video broadcast and sharing to the next level by enabling users to broadcast geo-tagged live videos from their mobile phones to the web.
- Navitime Japan Co., Ltd., Japan: NAVITIME is a multi-modal navigation solution combining different methods of transportation including pedestrian and car.
- Realeyes3D, France: Motion Maps allows mobile users to pan across digital maps in this LBS application by just tilting the phone.
- tenCube, Singapore: WaveSecure protects the user’s mobile device, data and privacy against theft.
- Tenzeng, Australia: LostAndFound is a suite of applications that enables call center operators to help customers find their lost mobile devices.
- TourSpot, LLC, USA: TourSpot is a walking tour and city guide application with integrated location-based content and mobile coupons.
- Urban Team, Germany: FastFoot-Challege is a multi-player GPS action game where fans can track the action live.
- ValueFirst Connect Ltd, India: Redgift locates nearby potential volunteer blood-donors for emergency cases.
- Yatra Online Private Limited, India: Hotel Companion enables travelers to locate and learn about points of interest in their area.
- Yoose GmbH, Germany / Fox Mobile Distribution, Singapore: YLIB - J2ME Edition is an In-Game Location-Based Couponing solution which Sties location-based advertising promotions with free mobile games.
The country of origin for submitted applications does not matter in the LBS Challenge. As you will notice from the above list, there are applications developed by companies from countries outside of the APAC region. Applications submitted to each regional edition of the LBS Challenge are accepted provided that they use NAVTEQ map data for the region in question and that the application has not been entered in any other region. Several companies have stated they chose to enter their application in a particular region to raise their visibility in that part of the world.
Awards
NAVTEQ will announce the APAC region winners at the Awards ceremony in the NAVTEQ booth (stand 3L2-07) on 17 June at 3:30pm. The awards ceremony is open to all CommunicAsia attendees.
All semifinalist companies will be demonstrating their applications at dedicated kiosks in NAVTEQ’s booth throughout the duration of the show.
CommunicAsia attendees can also cast their vote for the “People’s Choice Award” and be entered into a raffle to win a phone.
NAVTEQ announces a “People’s Choice” Award for APAC Region Attendees at this year’s CommunicAsia in Singapore will have the opportunity to cast their own vote for their favorite LBS Challenge application. Throughout the four days of CommunicAsia (June 16-19), attendees can vote and be entered to win one of three phones from one of our Global Sponsors: Nokia E71, Samsung INNOV8 (i8510), or Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber-shot™.
Votes will be collected until 3:00pm on Friday, 19 June and the People’s Choice winner and the raffle winners, will be announced shortly thereafter.
The raffle is open to all CommunicAsia attendees.
How has winning the LBS Challenge helped previous winners?
With a global prize pool valued at over $5.5 million this year, and a track record of bringing commercial contracts and funding to 32% of the semifinalists since inception, the LBS Challenge is a proof of NAVTEQ’s long experience of stimulating innovation in the LBS space.
As examples of how the LBS Challenge has helped previous winners, they can speak for themselves:
Steve Andler, vice president, Networks In Motion (NIM) (Grand Prize Winner of 2004 LBS Challenge with AtlasBook Navigator and a category winner in 2005 with a solution called Photofinder™):
“Participating in the first LBS Challenge helped Networks In Motion gain visibility with investors and carriers. After winning, NAVTEQ’s team helped us promote our platform, and worked with us to develop the current business model for introducing navigation on mobile phones. By getting to know the NAVTEQ team we have jointly participated in tradeshows and worked on major deals.”
Today, NIM provides its applications under a private label model and holds the largest market share of LBS mobile applications revenue with products across all major US carriers. NIM’s products include AAA Mobile (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and Alltel), TELUS Navigator and TELUS Kid Find (TELUS), Your Navigator (US Cellular), Axcess Mobile Guide (Alltel) and Yellowpages.com Mobile (AT&T).
Andler adds, “We had a great experience growing up with the LBS Challenge, as a two time winner, and past sponsor, we applaud NAVTEQ’S pioneering work in creating the Challenge, and highly recommend the experience to companies who would like a forum to show off their innovative ideas to move the LBS segment even higher.”
Andrew Graham, CEO, Bones in Motion (Grand Prize Winner of 2005 LBS Challenge with BiM Active):
BiM Active won the Grand Prize of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge in 2005 and immediately benefited from the incredible media coverage and interest from potential partners and buyers around their first product offering. That helped Bones in Motion receive angel funding to stay independent and has given them the freedom to pursue their long-term mission of building applications that help consumers.
BiM Active was launched by Sprint Nextel in February 2006, and is now is available on Alltel, Iusacell (Mexico), Sprint, Verizon Wireless and several BlackBerry models.
“The wireless application marketplace is getting crowded in the area of LBS and winning the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge validates young start-ups and is the equivalent of winning the academy award for our developers.”
Nicola De Mattia, CEO, UbiEst (Grand Prize Winner of 2008 LBS Challenge EMEA):
“If your job and your dream are to grow your company and become an international player, start by accepting the challenge that the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is issuing to you. It’s the right place to be.”
UbiSafe won Grand Prize for the EMEA region for 2008. In a very short time after their victory, UbiEst found their newly found name recognition was opening doors abroad that would otherwise have been tougher to open, helping the company achieve broader market visibility with several agreements with international global players as a result. UbiSafe is currently offered directly to consumers through the UbiSafe website, www.ubisafe.com. Distribution deals with mobile operators are also being discussed.
Brina Francavilla, Marketing, UbiEst:
“The judging round of the LBS Challenge is an amazing experience – you have a dream list of representatives from device manufacturers, operators, press and media and venture capitalists, and just have a few minutes to showcase your application. You are committed to give your best and feel like you’re having a lifetime opportunity. Exciting!”
Sam Critchley, Vice President of Products, GyPSii (Third Runner-Up of 2008 LBS Challenge EMEA):
“We were able to demonstrate our application directly to 12 very influential industry judges. The whole event was very well-organized by NAVTEQ and ran like clockwork.”
With prototype and beta testing behind them, GyPSii was looking to showcase their application globally and chose to enter into the 2008 NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge in the hope that the recognition they would receive would help with the commercial launch of the service. GyPSii launched publicly at Mobile World Congress 2008 and were able to use the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge as part of their launch campaign. Since then, the relationship with NAVTEQ and its membership in NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D) has contributed to GyPSii’s LBS product development.
Today, GyPSii is a global service, available across a broad range of mobile platforms and devices, including Symbian OS™, Windows Mobile and RIM BlackBerry™, Apple iPhone and browser-based Internet-connected devices.
Let’s have a look at what has happened to the winners from APAC since last year (LBS Challenge was run for the first time in APAC in 2008):
- Grand Prize Winner: Joikuspot by JoikuSoft
- Won Symbian Star Developer Award awarded by Forum Nokia at Symbian Smartphone Show 2008.
- Secured funding from Tekes in Finland.
- ISV (self-distribution via JoikuShop) and successful with Nokia (last year’s device sponsor) with links into Nokia Ovi store.
- 1st Runner-Up: GreenDrive™ by Road-Guard
- NAVTEQ and the LBS Challenge was one of their first milestones to explore the market and get validation for GreenDrive.
- A “Green Champion” – early adopter of “Green Routing” attributes; contributed to evolving more eco-friendly routing / navigation map product attributes => great for the environment. “A Fuel Economy Solution that Helps Vehicle Drivers Save on Average 15-25% on Fuel Costs.”
- Regional winner in Bavaria, Germany for European Satellite Navigation Competition 2008 and 1st Runner-Up of GALILEO Master 2008 among 293 international contestants.
- Nominated for the Sony Ericsson Content Awards 2008 in the In-Car Applications category.
- Grand Prize Winner 2009 of Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators (Navigation category)
- Doing fine, progressing with product development, still working on getting funded.
- Collaborating with Nokia and some other companies and getting close to product launch.
Alex Ackerman CEO, Road-Guard says: “The NAVTEQ team was instrumental in assisting Road-Guard along the way both with introducing us to strategic customers and venture capitalists. Both during the LBS Challenge event and later on, during the NAVTEQ Connections™ event (to which we were invited as first runners up of LBS Challenge), we had the opportunity to be introduced to potential customers and Venture Capitalists, and with some of them we’ve developed strategic relationships.”
- 2nd Runner-Up: On2gether by Point-I
- Company acquired by Korean Alox
- Company acquired by Korean Alox
- 3rd Runner-Up: Locator for SkyMail by Pacific DataVision, Inc.
- Gained location based distribution beyond Sprint
- SkyMail Selected as an AT&T Small Business Certified Mobile Application (Oct 2008)