Random Winners
‘MyMachine’ is a unique online project which builds bridges between three different levels of education: primary, secondary and higher. Via an attractive interactive web-site, children in primary schools produce ideas to create their own ‘dream machine’, the focus being on creativity and imagination over functional usage. Subsequently, higher education students, such as those studying engineering courses, translate these ideas into workable designs, publishing their endeavours to a virtual online community. Finally, pupils from technical secondary schools use the online material in order to produce real prototypes of the machines. In this way, the ‘MyMachine’ lifecycle (invent, design, make, show, patent) starts with the imagination of children and ends with ‘products’. The project has been adopted by the local and regional government (Flanders) and by various companies which have become corporate partners of ‘MyMachine’. During the entire process, children and students can collaborate online and appeal to the know-how and support of the partners, unifying the world of education and entrepreneurship with a key focus on ‘creativity and innovation’. For more information visit the website http://www.mymachine.be.
The National Broadband Map is a visual representation of New Zealand’s broadband landscape. It has been created to graphically represent broadband supplier network footprints alongside geocoded points, which indicate potential broadband demand locations. The Map takes publicly available government location data from various sources and combines it in such a way as to provide information and tools to aid in demand aggregation and infrastructure planning. The National Broadband Map also allows any citizen, business or government agency to reuse, reanalyse or visualise the demand point data in any manner, providing an environment in which extra value can be created from data which was once dispersed and inaccessible. Huge data reuse opportunities are already apparent as a result of this work, and both the public and private sectors in New Zealand are becoming aware of the value of having accurate, precise, data which is accessible to all. For more information visit the website http://www.broadbandmap.govt.nz/map.
Lingorilla is a broadband video community where linguaphiles from across the globe can brush up on their language skills. Offering a diverse and effective platform for language learning, lingorilla uses interactive activities and entertaining video clips to offer glimpses of every-day life, while conveying useful vocabulary and authentic accents. lingorilla's specially developed language-learning functions also enable its members to network and interact through video chat. The combination of entertaining content, innovative technologies and proven learning methods makes learning languages easy and exciting. The lingorilla platform is available to log into 24/7, accommodating every single member, and making over-booked classes a thing of the past. Such advantages make lingorilla the ideal solution for the global spread of languages, from those essential to international communication, to those that are more obscure or in danger of dying out. For more information visit the website http://www.lingorilla.com.
After almost 10 years of brand-building, AWEB has become China’s largest agricultural portal website, with daily visits topping 1 million. It offers a rich source of farming information, such as news, network promotion, online trading, supply and demand, and online recruitment for farmers and agricultural enterprises . Farmers and major farming households can consult experts via the forum, and receive answers to their questions free of charge. They can also post supply and demand information on a “Business Platform”, and a “Comprehensive Services Platform” functions to regulate and control the quality of the material submitted, as well as the content of online stores. In order to strengthen the protection of farmers, a “credit star” program has been developed, which uses an electronic tag to establish a low-cost credit system for small and medium sized enterprises, providing basic online credit management services for their electronic business and trading activities. For more information visit the website http://www.aweb.com.cn.
Malaria kills over a million a year: a simple SMS could prevent 20% of those deaths. In order to fight the deadly consequences of the growing global counterfeit pharmaceutics market, MPedigree enables anyone in a developing country with access to a cell phone to authenticate their drugs before use. It works via a simple SMS, accessible by default on all phones, and available on all cellular networks. Akin to the very popular scratch card method for replenishing cellular talk-time, users reveal a single-use code on drugs and SMS it to a provisioned mobile shortcode, which, in turn, generates an automated verification response. There is no cost to the drug patron – genuine drug manufacturers are eager to bear the entire cost due to the entrenched benefits they stand to reap when counterfeiters are driven out of the market. Armed with a simple cell phone, users can finally rely on the quality of their medicine. For more information visit the website http://www.mpedigree.org/home.
Newstin is an innovative technology that incorporates a new approach to content organization. Comprising over 100 million documents and 5 billion metadata items, it is the largest news database in the world with up to 250,000 articles processed daily. Newtin?s mission is to help corporate and government clients optimize intelligence efficiency and improve performance management by providing fully automated news and data categorization solutions in all the major world languages. Newstin technology is a unique system that features multi-language and cross-language document categorization. It is a powerful engine which harnesses a variety of cutting-edge technologies and implements linguistic processing with semantic analysis and multi-tier content categorization. With 2 million users globally, Newstin patented technology has the potential to become a core platform for organizing any form of unstructured textual data. For more information visit the website http://www.newstin.com.
Rigorous censorship is an issue with which the population of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) are well-acquainted. In a country where most official journalists support the government in order to receive protection, working as an independent journalist is far from easy. Thanks to Internet blogging, however, the founder of Congoblog.net found a platform for freedom of speech where he could publish his articles without fearing the censorship that ordinary newspapers are subject to. Congoblog proved to be a huge hit amongst the republic’s population, and soon was transformed into a platform enabling other Congolese citizens to themselves freely. Eight young citizens were trained by the founder on blogging techniques, and were provided with a camera – previously unthinkable in the former dictatorship, whereby anyone caught taking an unlicensed photo was promptly arrested and thrown into jail. Step by step, with the support of the journalism school of Lille, these young bloggers are being encouraged to take the lead on the website, in the hope that the project will motivate them to train others in the technique of blogging. For more information visit the website http://www.congoblog.net.
E.V.A. (Enhanced Vehicle Automation) is an innovative system for emergency vehicles. It enables control of the territory, its features being activated by operator voice commands, as well as by manual use of its touch-screen. The system can be installed on any vehicle and consists of two units: an internal heart of the system, located on the dashboard, and an external device comprising an emergency alert system (light and sound), an infra-red camera to record the surrounding environment, and a back-panel to display alert messages. A set of back-office servers completes the distributed architecture, linking to terminals such as police force databases, updated mapping information, and enabling the exchange of messages. For more information visit the website http://www.carabinieri.it.
“IQ” Training & Testing is an entertaining and educational software package for PCs. Suitable for anyone with a reading age of 7+, the software stimulates users to improve their logical, mathematical and visual intelligence via a series of questions and games. It promises to tune up mental focus, improve intellectual productivity and enhance concentration, promoting faster thinking and learning. Users can compete with others at problem and puzzle-solving tasks and display their results – making learning appealing and fun. For more information visit the website http://www.dominativ.hr.
Casebook is a forensic investigation game which utilizes patented AREO technology to enable the player to fully explore 3D photoreal crime scenes. Gameplay is interspersed with over 30 minutes of cinematics, featuring real actors starring in genuine sets, and convincing crime scenes. These scenes can be subsequently navigated and investigated in real-time by the player, whose task is to find and analyse clues in order to ultimately solve the case. The AREO technology captures the film scenes with tens of thousands of digital photos which, when stitched together, create an interactive environment which is rich in detail. Considering the massive amount of data captured, the 'magic' of the technology is that the game, which contains 100,000 plus digital photos, ships as a 1GB size file and is downloadable. For more information visit the website http://www.casebookthegame.com.
