KUCHING: Maxis Berhad (Maxis) together with the Ministry of Information, Communications, Arts and Culture (KPKK) as well as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (SKMM) have awarded winning tertiary student teams of the Mobile Content Challenge 2009 (MCC 2009) up to RM100,000 during a ceremony on Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur.MCC 2009 is a programme designed to empower young student developers to join the content developer community and foster innovation on mobile phones by introducing them to new development techniques.
The programme also supports the government’s MyICMS886 initiative to educate and empower young developers.
The grand prize of RM60,000 went to Team UTMobile from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for their ‘Flyer: On-The-Fly Flash Composer and Community’ (Flyer Composer).
Flyer Composer is a system that enables users to create electronic flash cards while on the go by selecting image, text, and audio through a mobile portal or Short Messaging System (SMS) request.
The finished flash based mobile greeting cards will be then be delivered through Multimedia Messaging System (MMS).
Team UTMobile comprises students Hasnol Ariff Hussin and Muhamad Bukhairi Samsudin as well as lecturer-advisor Dr Mohd Yazid Idris.
MCC 2009 also awarded prizes of RM10,000 each to three other student teams for the Mobile Entertainment category, which was won by Team Genex from Universiti Sains Malaysia and the Mobile Info Base category, awarded to Team Vicegerent from the International Islamic University Malaysia.
Team Qlip.in from Universiti Putra Malaysia received a special award for their 1Malaysia communal building product, which is able to integrate existing global social networks to local online and mobile communities.
Deputy Minister of Information, Communications, and Culture Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum presented the prizes to the winners.
He said: “The MCC plays an important part in the overall national strategy to build up the next generation of mobile content developers, by giving them a viable infrastructure of support, incentives and guidance to successfully launch their ideas and creations in the commercial market.”
Similar to past years, the strategic framework for MCC 2009 focused on the approach of ‘inspire-innovate-enterprise’. Six regional workshops were organised as part of MCC 2009 and more than 565 students participated in the workshops in Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Penang, Kuala Terengganu, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching.
There was also a Mobility Content Development Camp for the 10 shortlisted teams in Kuala Lumpur from Oct 7-9, 2009.
The workshops and camp were conducted in collaboration with 11 industry partners namely Nokia, Google, MDeC, Mobile World, Petrosains, IBM, Orbitage, Talent Development Consulting, LTT Global Communications, Murasu Systems and KartunisUbi.com.
During the challenge, teams were matched with industry mentors from experienced local mobile content developers, mainly from the Maxis Developer Programme (MDP), who guided teams in all aspects of their submissions.
Going forward, the winning teams will be given further opportunities to continue working with their mentor companies in the next stage of commercially launching their applications.
“With encouraging response since 2007, the industry needs to fast track mobile content adoption in Malaysia by ensuring a network that can deliver next generation content to mobile phones and offering affordable devices to the consumers,” said SKMM chief operating officer Datuk Mohd Sharil Tarmizi.
“As an industry developer, SKMM had foreseen this emerging trend and was quick in drawing action plans to facilitate growth of the networked content by having dedicated resources for content development, setting up the Networked Content Development grant scheme, promoting opportunities in content development and collaborating with industry players. The MCC is part of SKMM’s commitment to building capacity and capability among the young, up and coming shakers and shapers of the industry, namely students of Institutes of Higher Learning,” he added.
According to Maxis CEO Sandip Das, the MCC is a vital part of Maxis’ larger quest to build a vibrant ecosystem for mobile content in the country.
“We are pleased to incubate a ‘nursery’ of local content, conceived by smart young talents. By participating in this programme, the young generation of developers will now have access to Malaysia’s largest community of mobile users to capture the imaginations of over 11.7 million (as of Sept 30, 2009) Maxis subscribers. Maxis sees this as an opportunity for the development of useful, innovative and creative local content that may enrich our customers’ lives,” said Sandip.
“More importantly, it reflects a huge demand for mobile data services in Malaysia and our potential to be a viable leading hub for mobile content development in the region,” he added.
Since MCC was launched in July 2007, more than 460 teams have submitted their concept papers for participation in the competition that aims to encourage and cultivate development in the areas of mobile content, innovative and creative mindset and nurture a community of young entrepreneurs within the mobile content industry.
In conjunction with this event, Maxis also announced the commencement of registration for content developers in Maxis 1Store, a one-stop application and content store that allows Maxis customers to purchase applications through an easy to use platform.
Registered developers may submit their content applications to be published in the Maxis 1Store portal for customers to purchase.
The Maxis 1Store, a Maxis collaboration with IBM, currently has more than 2,500 content applications developed on the Symbian and Java applications.
“With encouraging response since 2007, the industry needs to fast track mobile content adoption in Malaysia by ensuring a network that can deliver next generation content to mobile phones and offering affordable devices to the consumers,” said SKMM chief operating officer Datuk Mohd Sharil Tarmizi.
“As an industry developer, SKMM had foreseen this emerging trend and was quick in drawing action plans to facilitate growth of the networked content by having dedicated resources for content development, setting up the Networked Content Development grant scheme, promoting opportunities in content development and collaborating with industry players. The MCC is part of SKMM’s commitment to building capacity and capability among the young, up and coming shakers andshapers of the industry, namely students of Institutes of Higher Learning,” he added.
According to Maxis CEO Sandip Das, the MCC is a vital part of Maxis’ larger quest to build a vibrant ecosystem for mobile content in the country.
“We are pleased to incubate a ‘nursery’ of local content, conceived by smart young talents. By participating in this programme, the young generation of developers will now have access to Malaysia’s largest community of mobile users to capture the imaginations of over 11.7 millio (as of Sept 30, 2009) Maxis subscribers. Maxis sees this as an opportunity for the development of useful, innovative and creative local content that may enrich our customers’ lives,” said Sandip.
“More importantly, it reflects a huge demand for mobile data services in Malaysia and our potential to be a viable leading hub for mobile content development in the region,” he added.
Since MCC was launched in July 2007, more than 460 teams have submitted their concept papers for participation in the competitionthat aims to encourage and cultivate development in the areas of mobile content, innovative and creative mindset and nurture a community of young entrepreneurs within the mobile content industry.
In conjunction with this event, Maxis also announced the comencement of registration for content developers in Maxis 1Store, a one-stop application and content store that allows Maxis customers to purchase applications through an easy to use platform.
Registered developers may submit their content applications to be published in the Maxis 1Store portal for customers to purchase.
The Maxis 1Store, a Maxis collaboration with IBM, currently has more than 2,500 content applications developed on the Symbian and Java applications.
For more information on MCC go to htt://mdp.maxis.com.my.