Looking for the best web and mobile applications for the next generation social networking sites, Microsoft Philippines and Smart Communications launched the Best of the Best Developer Competition.  The competition took place at the SMX Convention Center at the SM Mall of Asia on June 26-27.  A total of seven prequalified teams composed of students and professional developers took part in this round-the-clock (no sleep) event.

Day 1: Getting into Serious Business

To improve the commercial viability and quality of the projects, the participants underwent business and technical training in day 1. We invited industry experts to deliver the following sessions:

Business Tracks

• Starting Up Your Own Business in IT – Paul Pajo (Chief Evangelist - WaTunes.com / CTO - SonicLogo.TV)
• Web and Mobile Trends and Opportunities – Jim Ayson (Product Manager, Platforms and Mobile Internet Services SMART Communications, Inc.)
• Creating an Effective Business Plan – Elmar Gomez (President/CEO, Mobile Arts Inc.)

Technical Tracks

• Mobile Broadband Technology – Jay Bacoy (Network Planning & Engineering, Senior Manager, Smart Communications Inc)
• Web Technology - Alezandra Nicholas (MCT Instructor) and Paco Garcia (Developer, Asia Systems Group)
• Social Networking – Jerome Almirante (Head, VAS and Data Services, Smart Communications, Inc.)

After the training, participants huddled up with their teammates to plan how to incorporate the learnings into their project implementation and business plan.  Powered up with caffeine and sugar rich food, the teams were set for an overnight development session, locked up at the convention center (Big Brother style).

From Dusk ‘til Dawn

The whole event was streaming online to share the experience to other developers, students, and enthusiasts.  Surprisingly, a lot of people were online on a friday night! To bring more fun and excitement to the viewers, the Microsoft Student Partners hosted the program and activities the entire night.  There were lots of fun games with viewer interactions and technology (Windows7, Bing, IE8, Silverlight).  We raffled off exciting prizes every hour to lucky online viewers. Needless to say, the viewers were very happy (and lively even until 5am!).

Day 2: And the winner is…

Selecting the best of the best would be tough.  Good thing we’ve got the best judges up to the task:

• Ms. Bettina Quimson (President, Navigator Systems / Chair Government Relations Committee, Philippine Software Industry Association)
• Mr. Johnny Benitez (Technology Specialist, Microsoft Philippines)
• Mr. Warren Yu (Microsoft MVP for BizTalk)
• Mr. Ray Coloma (Dep't. Head for IP/IT Systems, Network and Platforms Services Division, SMART Communications Inc.)

The teams were given 20 minutes to demo their project and present their business plan to the panel of judges. The following criteria was used to judge the entries:

• 50% Potential for Widespread Use
• 20% Usability and User Experience
• 20% Use of Microsoft Technologies
• 10% Prototype Functionality

After much deliberation from the judges, the following winners were selected…

1st Place Winner (Php300,000.00 + Laptop + Mobile Phones)

Team Triumvirate Ricardo Monteverde Marc Pheenee San Diego

2nd Place Winner (Mobile Phones)

Team X Mobile Charmine Azajar Ronald Karlo Jarilla

3rd Place Winner (Mobile Phones)

Team EA3 Allan Sta. Cruz Allan Paul Vizmanos Emman Tortoza Kevin Allan Hukom

People’s Choice Award (Mobile Phones)

Team GCS Jeffrey Bravo Rogelyn Chu Bermudes Galan Maximo Bautista

Everybody wins in this competition.  All teams will be registered to BizSpark where they can get the tools and support they need to realize their project and startup company.  Congratulations to the other teams who participated!

Setting the Record

This is the first time we tried out live streaming for our event and we are happily surprised with the turnout.  Our live stream had over 200 viewers and our landing page got over 3700 hits overnight (and 1000+ more after the event).

Special Thanks

We would like to thank everyone who helped make this event possible.  We’d like to give special mention to…

Our guest speakers: Paul Pajo, Jim Ayson, Elmar Gomez, Jay Bacoy, Zandra Nicholas, Paco Garcia, Jerome Almirante

Our judges: Johnny Benitez, Warren Yu, Bettina Quimson, Ray Coloma

Our event co-sponsor: Smart Communications Inc.

Our events team: Geenger Inc., Ely delos Santos, Mellie Valimento, Edu Lorenzo, Carlito’s Catering, SMX Convention Center, Bitstop Network Services 

Our organization/student volunteers: Microsoft Student Partners, Asia Pacific College, Junior ISSA, PSIA, APC-JPCS, De La Salle College of St. Benilde

Many thanks! See you in our next broadcast!

1. Email developershowdown@live.com
2. Subject: Vote Team <Team Number>,
• Example:  Vote Team 9
3. Message Body: Your Name, Contact Number

Here are the Developer Teams:

Team 1: GCS
Project Name: MyScatter
Social networking has indeed made a tremendous impact on a lot of people and thus has become one of main activities that people do. Aside from the fact that they get to inform people of any events and activities in one's life we tend to get more ability to socialize even virtually with other people.

MyScatter is a hybrid application using Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)
 and Internet Technology.

It's offering the capacity for users to publish photos and post it on ther favourite Sociall Networking sites.

1. Maximo Bautista Jr.
2. Rogelyn Chu
3. Bermudes Galan
4. Jeffrey Bravo

Team 2: XMobile
Project: My Social Mobile
The project shall be a mobile phone application that will enable users to associate the contacts on their mobile devices to the contacts on the social network they are connected, for the purpose of updating their contacts through SMS when they do an update in any of the social networking site using this mobile application (For this project only Friendster and Facebook are the target social networking site).

1. Ronal Karlo Jarilla
2. Charmine Azajar

Team 3: EA³
Project: MusicNet
MusicNet is a service that will act as an application that will push information, particularly that of music releases to interested, registered parties. The application is targeted to be implemented through a web interface, through application plugins or a website, and also through a mobile interface via SMS.

1. Allan Paul Vizmanos
2. Kevin Allan Hukom
3. Emmanuel Tortoza
4. Allan Sta. Cruz

Team 4: iBlaze
Project: GeoSeek
Basically, the app is a location mapping system which aims for a more visually effective and organized display of profile information about fellow app users. Through the maps, app users will be informed of statistical data obtained from the geographical locations, and thus formulate sound decisions or just learn trivial information about their contacts.

1. Luigi Dollosa
2. Migs Cueto
3. Vanessa Carlos
4. Andrew Gonzaga

Team 5: Blazers
Project: MedSolutions
Our business proposal would be a mobile and web application that will integrate different kinds of information regarding medical concerns of subscribers in a social networking site.
The application is a widget that will run in a social networking site (facebook, Friendster etc). The information gathered from the users who use the said widget will be received by the database.  Moreover, the information can also be accessed by certified medical practitioners for specific medical help. The mobile application will be able to track through global positioning system the position of the client (who’s sick). If the client fells sick, he can press a key in his mobile phone, the application will be able to track the nearest hospital or medical center. The medical center, with  the web application running, will be able to track the patient’s whereabout their Microsoft maps technology and respond to the client’s needs.
The information will be organized accordingly. For instance, a user of the application needs help regarding her health condition. He inputs his medical history/sickness to the web app (widget). Once  A medical practitioner who is an expert with the patient’s concern, sees the medical history, he may post medications that will be able to respond to the patient’s needs. He may also view the medical history (with the consent of the user) during emergency cases such as stated in the previous paragraph.  Other users of the application can also give comments with the particular posted health concern. This can also be done via mobile devices.

1. Evita Gatpadan
2. Angelbert Junio
3. Ian Delima
4. Joy Albert de Jesus

Team 6: FunMobile
Project: FaceUpNow your Mobil
Full integration of FREE SMS Sending has not been established in any Social Networking sites, all they offer are services that charge the recipient of the SMS, whenever they receive or reply back. The reason behind this is the Telco’s Content Providers or CP. We are using the same concept as the current trend SMS Services circulating on Social Network Sites but we will fill the gap to make the service free to all.

1. Rex Estremera
2. Warren Abundo
3. Maureen Lopena

Team 7: Triumvirate
Projects: P.E.T.S. (Pets Enthusiasts Tourney Smash!)
The project is about having a digital community wherein users can nurture their own digital pets and use them to interact with other users within the network by means of battling, pet interactions, sharing, buying and trading of items. Interactions will be done through mobile phones and an online widget to greatly improve users’ experience.

1. Ricardo Monteverde
2. Marc Phennee San Diego

Microsoft, in partnership with Smart, is hosting a competition open to professional and student developer teams, entitled “Best of the Best: The Developer Showdown” on June 26-27, 2009 to be held at the SMX Convention Center.  The competition intends to seek out the most innovative applications for web and mobile applications for social networking.

 
PROGRAMME

JUNE 26, 2009: Day 1: Technopreneurship Workshop*

·         Business Tracks

Starting up your own business in IT          9:00 am – 10:00 a.m.

Creating an Efficient Business Plan            10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Trends in IT Industry                               11:00 a.m. – 12:00 n.n.

·         Technical Tracks

Mobile Technology                                1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Web Technology                                    2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Social Networking                                  3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Finalists Briefing                                     4:01 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Overnight Competition**             5:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.

* All finalists are given the opportunity to be enrolled in Bizspark, a Microsoft global program designed to accelerate the success of early stage Startups and provides software, support and visibility.

**Overnight @ SMX: Streaming Session

·         To incorporate what they have learned from the Technopreneurship Workshop, finalists will spend overnight at SMX to have their projects revised for improvement and to prepare their presentation for Day 2 (June 27, 2009)

·         Live Streaming Live via Silverlight and Live Spaces hosted by the Microsoft Student Partners

·         Hourly raffles

·         Team Interviews

·         Technology Features

·         Call-in participants

·         Commercials

JUNE 27, 2009: Day 2: Presentation / Judging / Awarding

                Finalists present their business proposal to judges and will be evaluated according to the competition’s criteria and is followed by the awarding ceremonies.

            Judges and Participants Briefing              8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.

            Presentation and Judging                       9:00 a.m. – 12:00 n.n.

            Deliberation                                          12:01 n.n. – 1:00 p.m.

            Awarding                                              1:01 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

The Showdown will feature in focus, the development skills of the Filipino developer. The main theme of the contest is to create a better and more engaging way to interact with existing social networking sites and applications.

We will be looking for applications that will:

a)       Enable an easier, more efficient and engaging way to interact with existing social networking sites. This could include the creation of a new way to consume data from sites like PopFly, Flickr, FaceBook, Friendster etc.

b)       Enable a faster, more efficient and engaging way to push data to existing social networking sites. (interact with other members through blogs, notifications, etc)

c)       Enable a method to interact or broadcast information to other users of the application

With these items in mind, we hope to encourage you to create a business proposal! Please send the proposal in the following format (Entries are given as example, feel free to use the idea)

Project Title: MyScatter

General Description:

                The project shall be a mobile phone application that will enable the user to take pictures, then send/scatter the picture to all social networking sites that he/she has taken then inform all of her contacts that he has updated his photo album through sms.

Specific Description:

                The project shall have three major parts:

1)       User maintenance -  put description here

2)       Scatter Engine -  put description here

3)       Database -  put description here

Ready with your project/business plan?  Send your entries to v-melval@microsoft.com.

Criteria for Judging

Potential for Widespread Use on Mobile & Web  (50%)

Usability and User Experience – Next Generation (20%)

Technologies Used – Microsoft Latest (20%)

Software Functionalities and Quality (10%)