Globe Labs challenge winners awarded

Globe Labs, the innovation-driven group within Globe Telecom, capped this year’s Globe Labs Challenge with awards for the winners and finalists of the competition last Nov. 28 at the Temple Bar and Restaurant.

Globe Labs selected one winner each from the six contest categories. The category winners, awarded P300,000 each, were Phinug Team B for the location-based and location-dependent services; Bicol X for media, file-sharing and storage; Eureka for graphical user interface to information and services; CAWS for enhanced SMS/MMS applications; Kadoods for mobile social networking; and D3 Systems for shopping on the phone.

Globe Labs also recognized the finalists for each of the categories and awarded them P50,000 each. The finalists were Payvenue 1 for location-based and location-dependent services; E-Zolutions and Payvenue 2 for graphical user interface to information and services; 7, Punziesoft, and Cerveo for enhanced SMS/MMS applications; Squall for mobile social networking; and Payvenue 4 and One-Man for shopping on the phone.

The contest was launched last Aug. 7. There were more than 800 members of the Globe Labs Community who joined the contest. The participants were asked to form teams with at least one member and with a maximum of three members. The teams were given two months to build prototype applications under their chosen category.

To enrich the functionality of the entries, the Globe Labs SMS/MMS API (Application Programming Interface) was made available to the participants to easily integrate text and multimedia messaging into their applications. Globe Labs’ technology partners — Adobe, Forum Nokia, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems — also held trainings and workshops around their new technology offerings in order to bolster the caliber of the entries.

The participants of this challenge were from software development companies, academe, freelance and individuals. The submitted entries went through a stringent judging process. The entries underwent compliance screening, elimination-round and final-round judging. 

The challenge is a great venue for developers to be recognized for their talents as Globe is planning on offering some of the winning and submitted applications to consumers. The developers will also have the chance to be recognized internationally as Globe’s foreign telecommunications company partners will look into the applications and choose which ones they can offer to their subscribers. 

“Globe takes pride in this challenge as it shows the company’s commitment to help the developer community turn opportunities to successful endeavors. Globe believes that Filipino developers are at par with developers from other countries and that is the reason why Globe is providing development and commercial opportunities to all developers and innovators through Globe Labs,” said Fernando Teodoro, head of innovation development division.

“Globe will continue to develop initiatives that will help sustain the pool of talented developers in the country by providing development exposure and technology trainings to schools and the youth,” added Harvey Libarnes, head of Globe Labs.

Globe Labs is designed to build future technology development test beds in a creative and secure environment. It establishes partnerships with developers to build and showcase these new applications. Also, Globe Labs provides technical support and Telco tools to build new applications and service