Michael Yuan, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, is the winner of the University Wireless Developer Contest jointly sponsored by Sun, Nextel Communications Inc. and Motorola Inc. Yuan took first place with his iFeedback application, a mobile survey tool that allows professors to send course-related questionnaires for open, real-time communications with students, that runs on Nextel's nationwide wireless packet data network. Yuan received a $20,000 scholarship, along with other prizes.

Ramswaroop Somani, a senior from the Georgia Institute of Technology, won second place with an application called the University Positioning System, which enables real-time tracking of people and possessions on campus and also includes a location-based reminder and calendar system that provides directions to and from university buildings. Somani's prize was $10,000. SmartPhrases, a mobile spell checker and dictionary application that also checks usage of words in phrases, won the $5,000 third prize for Ju Long, a business graduate student from the University of Texas at Austin.

"The three winning entries showcased the best applications based on the JavaTM 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2METM) tailored for the university market and the mobile lifestyle of today's students and teachers," said Chris Hackett, Nextel's vice president, Education Markets. "Each of these applications creatively addressed challenges by providing extremely valuable tools and solutions for students, faculty and staff, and educational institutions. This type of innovation from tomorrow's developers inspires us to introduce a second contest later this year that will help foster the creation of other valuable applications."

"As the leading provider of mobility solutions for consumers, carriers and enterprises, Sun is delighted to see university students using JavaTM technology to create innovative applications to enhance their mobile learning experience," said Juan Dewar, Sun's senior director of the Consumer, Mobility and Strategic Solutions Group. "These winning applications are a testament to Sun's role in creating a whole new mobile lifestyle, not only for consumers and business users, but also for students in academia worldwide."

"Java technology provides developers with the power to create innovative applications that answer the real needs of mobile phone users," says Peter Aloumanis, vice president and general manager, U.S. Markets Division, Motorola's iDEN Subscriber Group. "As a leader in the J2ME industry, Motorola is proud to be a sponsor of the University Wireless Developer Contest. We believe it is an ideal platform for the developers of tomorrow to showcase new and cutting edge ideas for creating real-life tools that have the potential to be utilized by universities nationwide."

Nextel, Sun and Motorola plan to launch a Fall 2003 University Wireless Developer Contest for students at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. The next contest will build on the success of the 2003 University Wireless Developer Contest for students and faculty who develop the best J2ME applications on Nextel Java technology-enabled handsets tailored specifically to making university life easier.

Contest information for the 2003 University Wireless Developer Contest will be available at:

http://developer.nextel.com

Read More ... [...read more...]

		fullsource
Print Email Current Profile Archive Blog Generate newsletter