Smart UK Project: Searching for the UK’s Most Innovative Mobile Companies
The search is on for the UK’s Most Innovative Mobile Company to showcase at Mobile World Congress 2014. The winner will be crowned on February 25th in Barcelona. The judging panel is full of mobile industry experts like Mike Short of Telefonica and Roy Gunter of Mobility Ventures. The UK has traditionally been a leader in the mobile industry. Global giants like Vodafone and ARM are headquartered in the UK. The UK is also a hotbed of smaller, disruptive companies that can turn the industry on it head. These are the companies that Smart UK Project is hoping to showcase.
Real innovation in mobile is not about faster processors, bigger screens or faster networks. These are just the enablers. The real innovation comes from how you use these. Think about train times on your phone. What makes this so compelling is quick access to real time information that works out where you are and where you are going and brings this together in a user friendly format. Smart UK Project is an initiative run in association with UK Trade & Investment that searches for the UK’s Most Innovative Mobile Company. The search is on for smaller companies with great ideas that have the potential to disrupt the mobile industry globally. It may be a new technology that can transform mobile phones across the world or a new use of established technology that will change what people do on their mobile phones. It may even be a new way of doing something in a simpler and more elegant fashion. Whatever your innovation involves, as long as it is in the mobile industry and has the potential to be a global success, we want to hear from you.The UK is chock full of great mobile innovation. This competition helps the smaller companies that are bubbling under to come to the fore.
Last year’s winner was OpenSignal, a crowd-sourced app for checking your mobile coverage and building an accurate map so users don’t have to rely on the dodgy maps produced by the mobile networks. The year before it was Datawind – a company bringing ultra-low cost tablets to emerging markets. This year the competition is open again and you have around a week to complete your entry. It is free to enter and shortlisted companies get significant media exposure in advance of and at Mobile World Congress.
Smart UK Project is a collaborative project between UK Trade & Investment (UK TI) and XL Communications.
UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is the government department that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy. We also help overseas companies bring their high quality investment to the UK’s economy – acknowledged as Europe’s best place from which to succeed in global business. UKTI offers expertise and contacts through its extensive network of specialists in the UK, and in British embassies and other diplomatic offices around the world. We provide companies with the tools they require to be competitive on the world stage. For more information on UKTI, visit www.ukti.gov.uk.
XL Communications is a UKTI’s media partner for Mobile World Congress. The company works with mobile and digital companies to help raise their profile through traditional and social media.