NAVTEQ has extended the registration deadline for the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge has been extended one week from Friday, December 11, 2009 to
Friday, December 18, 2009 for the India region. A completed solution is not required at the time of registration. All India registrants will have until January 29, 2010 to submit their solutions but must first complete registration. All applications submitted for the India region must contain localized NAVTEQ map data in order for them to be judged properly in the competition. Developers can download complimentary sample map data for India here:
http://www.nn4d.com/site/global/market/lbs_challenge/develop/map_data/p_mapdata.jspWe encourage you to also check out the geospatial platform tools available from NAVTEQ and our sponsors to assist you with your application development needs.
With India being the second largest mobile market in the world, there is a solid potential for adoption of LBS applications. India is a dynamic country with a diverse population and LBS applications could help provide solutions for many distinct consumer groups. A few examples of location-aware applications of relevance for the Indian market are:
- Pedestrian applications for urban areas could have wide appeal.
- Enterprise applications could help the many small business owners.
- Personal navigation for the growing middle-class who may soon be buying cars.
We are looking forward to seeing your applications in the first ever Global LBS Challenge – India. The regional winners of the Global LBS Challenge for India will be announced on April 29, 2010 in New Delhi.
The competition is open for pre-commercialized applications for any platform and any device, with a global prize pool of $10 million US. For more information on this year’s competition, go to http://www.lbschallenge.com/.
Sponsors for this year’s competition include: Alcatel-Lucent, AtlasCT, Bing Maps, BlackBerry (RIM), deCarta, DeviceAnywhere, DigitalGlobe, GPS Business News, HTC, Imagination Technologies, Intel, Mobile Distillery, Tanla and The Code Project.
First launched in 2003, the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is a world-wide competition conducted by NAVTEQ Network for Developers™ (NN4D), daring application developers around the world to build innovative location-based services (LBS) using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ® maps. Integrating the accuracy and richness of NAVTEQ digital map data and LBS content facilitates the timely evolution of the next wave of location-aware applications.
The Global LBS Challenge has become the premier event in the LBS industry for shining the spotlight on global LBS innovation and opportunity. Over 32% of the finalists from the past six years have gone on to receive venture capital funding or launch commercially-distributed applications.
Registration deadlines for the five regions of the competition are as follow:
- EMEA: closed
- North America: closed
- India: December 18, 2009 (extended)
- South America: February 12, 2010
- Asia-Pacific (APAC): March 5, 2010
For more information, see the official contest rules at http://www.lbschallenge.com/.
One of the hot new areas to address is location-based services. NAVTEQ will give a presentation on the topic “Leading the way through location-aware applications”. 
