An innovative initiative to develop content and services for the Mobile Information Society
Jakarta, October 24th 2000 Nokia today announced the Indonesian winners of one of the most comprehensive Asia Pacific initiatives for Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) content developers. Themed as “WAP Hothouse”, this initiative took the form of a contest, inviting local corporations, students, educational institutions, and individual content developers across eight major markets: Taiwan, Thailand Singapore Philippines Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Australia to submit their innovative ideas.
Nokia believes there will be more people connected to the Internet via handsets than PC’s by the end of 2003. The increasing digitalization of information, convergence of the Internet and mobile telephony will facilitate the creation of a Mobile Information Society. Relevant and exciting applications development and content enablement, will be the key drivers for this vision to become a reality. To that end, the WAP Hothouse competition underscores Nokia’s commitment to promoting the development of creative, innovative and locally relevant WAP content in individual markets.
The WAP Hothouse competition focused on developing applications in the following categories: m-productivity, m-entertainment, m-media, m-education and m-innovation. A total of 350 entries were selected from approximately 1,400 of submissions in the region. The majority of the entries that were submitted covered minnovation, such as ‘building up your own WAP page’ while others saw mproductivity as the key trend for the future. In Indonesia, most of the entries focused on m-media, m-innovation and m-productivity.
Nokia played an active role in supporting the various applications that were submitted by the developers. Besides offering the developers access to the developers’ center, the participants also received training and guidance from Nokia where required. Such training sessions provided include technical training, shared knowledge and expertise, information on the next steps of the WAP Hothouse competition and information on the Nokia Artuse Developers’ Program. Most of the developers that participated in the various training sessions, found it very valuable in terms of the technical knowledge gained from Nokia.
An eminent panel of judges selected the top winning entries from Indonesia based criteria such as novelty, effectiveness and business potential of the applications.
The distinguished judging panel for the finals comprised of Kamal Korattyile (Country Administrator, Nokia NET), Low Siew Kuan (NMP), Hasnul Suhaimi (Director, PT Indosat), Putu Suryawirawan (Director, Directorate of Electronic Industry DEPERINDAG) and Rudy Rusdiah (VP Mastel Internet Working Task Force).
“The contest was a call to the country’s WAP developers to envision a future and take a unique step towards the Mobile Information Society. The resulting work has produced an exciting range of some of the most innovative mobile applications yet seen in Indonesia”, said Kamal Korattyle, Country Administrator, Nokia NET.
The Indonesian winner will now enter the regional contest in Singapore on October 31 where the regional jury will select the winning entry from the eight qualifiers of each participating markets.
