Global Mobile Awards

In less than two weeks, mobile leaders worldwide will be gathering in Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile exhibition.

An important part of this conference is the 17th annual Global Mobile Awards.

Last year there was a category for the Best Mobile Learning Innovation, which was won by Urban Planet Mobile and PT Telkomsel for Urban English, Mobile English Learning Initiative. Audio English lessons were sent via SMS as a ringtone to a large number of Indonesians (over 70,000 during the first 3 months.).

The category for this year was expanded to Best Mobile Innovation for Education or Learning and drew further entries. This category was created “to highlight the rapidly increasing convergence of the mobile and education sectors, and to highlight some of the key areas of genuine innovation in learning initiatives, products, services or applications throughout the world today.”

From all entries, the judges chose the top five finalists from which one winner will be announced in Barcelona on Tuesday 28th February 2012. In alphabetical order the finalists are:

• Datawind for Aakash Tablet
  Dubbed the $35 tablet, the UbiSlate is the world’s cheapest tablet. The device also has phone functionality. The proprietary UbiSurfer browser shrinks data using Datawind’s own proxy servers and allows for fast web delivery on existing infrastructure. This cost-saving potential together with the low acquisition cost of the device and the ubiquity of GPRS infrastructure can aid in key sectors such as education, health, and agriculture.
  Additional information is available at http://www.ubislate.com

• Kajeet and Telcordia for Learning outside the Classroom, powered by Kajeet for Education with Telcordia's Charging and Policy controls
  By providing specialized mobile broadband connected Smart devices to schools and colleges, Kajeet is helping to ensure that the move from paper-based teaching resources is accomplished fairly across all students. The programme aims to give kids – particularly the underprivileged and the digitally disconnected – access to e-learning tools and smart connected devices in order to help close the digital divide and ensure equality of education opportunity.
  Additional information at https://www.kajeet.com/education/news.html
  
  
• KT Corporation for Kibot2
  Kibot (a compound word of kid and robot) is a new robot concept targeting infants and primary school students with diverse edutainment services such as content for education, video telephony, and home monitoring through a character-type media terminal. It provides over 10,000 educational contents, diverse motion controls, voice/touch recognition, facial express and more.
  Additional information is available at http://kibot.olleh.com (Korean)
  
  
• OnPoint Digital for CellCast Solution
  CellCast is the premiere platform for enterprise mLearning delivery and allows teams to create, deliver and track mobile content and tests to worker’s mobiles and tablets. The system harnesses the potential of today’s 3 major enterprise IT trends – cloud, mobile apps and social– and is perfect for just-in-time training, reinforcement, surveys and updates while helping organizations to leverage mobility by making workers better prepared, informed and empowered.
  Additional information is available at http://www.mlearning.com/
  
  
• Tata Teleservices & Expert Voicetap Technologies for Tutor On Mobile (TOM)
  Tutor on Mobile (TOM) was designed as a knowledge marketplace that provides every subscriber the opportunity to learn by accessing knowledge available with others and also to earn by sharing their own knowledge with the rest of the world. The service, launched in October 2011 acquired over 200,000 subscribers in a 45 day pilot and continued to add over 6000 subscribers a day.
  Additional information is available at: http://tom.tatadocomo.com

I was honored to participate as a judge both this year and last. The criteria we evaluated included:

• Innovation in terms of learning functionality, technology, business models and market potential
• Ease of access & usability: How simple/easy is it to use?
• How it taps into new under-served market segments
• How it applies to specific curricular & key learning objectives
• How it makes best use of mobility and/or on line working via wireless or mobile networks
• How it links to institutional systems such as virtual learning environments and management information systems
• Evidence of user/institutional take up