Mobile telecom company Vodafone’s philanthropic arm Vodafone Foundation has kicked off its first Mobile for Good Europe Awards app competition. The foundation’s competition is seeking iOS and Android apps that are designed to improve people’s lives and deliver substantial public benefit. For that, the foundation is offering a total prize fund of €200,000 (U.S. $259,000) to be shared by winners across four competition categories.
The four categories for the 2013 competition are Accessibility, Health, Education and Public Services. Specifically, for Accessibility, Vodafone is looking for apps that will help people with disabilities and/or the elderly to improve their quality of life and overcome barriers. Likewise, the Health category is searching for novel solutions to overcome challenges in areas such as real-time patient monitoring and collection and distribution of health-related data. The Education group is seeking apps that can empower teachers and students by allowing them to use mobile devices as teaching and learning tools and/or mobile tech that helps to open up data by offering new analytical tools. Finally, the Public Services category is looking for apps that will enable national, regional and local governments to leverage mobile devices and enhance the delivery of public services.
According to Vodafone, the competition is open to developers 18 and older who are legally residents in Europe (excluding Italy). While the first prize winners will take home €30,000 (U.S. $38,871) apiece, each second prize winner will get €15,000 ($19,435). The third prize winners in each category will take €5,000 ($6478).
Per Vodafone’s release, the closing date for submitting the application is 12:00 GMT on October 15, 2013. Although the finalists in each category will be notified in November, the final live judging round is in Brussels on Dec. 5. The finalists will be invited to the final judging round in Brussels.
In a statement, director of the Vodafone Foundation Andrew Dunnett said, “Mobile technology has the potential to educate, liberate and empower hundreds of millions of people. We hope the Mobile for Good Europe Awards will inspire innovators to invest in new and creative ways to use mobile to enhance individual daily lives and deliver substantial public benefits.”
The current awards are built on the success of the Vodafone Foundation’s Smart Accessibility Awards held in 2011 and 2012, which was a competition to find Android apps which improve the lives of those with disabilities and the elderly.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
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