Lee Epting is currently the Director of Content Services at Vodafone and knows what the completion can achieve in a wider context: "Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market."
Unlike other "develop something for us" competitions, Vodafone Mobile Clicks looks much more attractive to the start-ups and new companies that are in the mobile space, but we’d still advise that you read the criteria and terms and conditions carefully before entering.
Last year’s winner was Layar, an augmented reality browser that has gone on to form partnerships with LG and Samsung. We suspect the 75,000 Euros they won last year went a long way to getting themselves established in the market. Here’s a bit more about them:
This year the prize fund is being split as 100,000 Euros for the winner and a second place prize of 50,000 Euros. It’s open to individuals and companies in the UK, Portugal and the Netherlands, who are in a start-up younger than three years old, or are planning to start up a new business in the near future to exploit their idea.
It’s a tight schedule with the winners announced at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on 24th September this year. Of course, the goal is not to have a finished product to show, but to have the idea presented (although I bet a very early alpha would help sway the judges).
More information and registration details at the Vodafone Mobile Clicks website. Mobile Monday London are also supporting the competition, and their thoughts are also online.