Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka

It was not long ago that the only telephone available was the land phone and you had to be in the privileged class to own the device. If you are lucky you might have had documents to prove that you were within the privileged list of categories or that you had an ailing parent  to warrant an emergency call to a physician to make you eligible to obtain a loop for a land phone. 

This  situation has undergone a revolutionary change.  Now even the coconut tree climber carries a mobile phone. This is true in Sri Lanka, in Kerala, India and the whole of South Asia. Judging from the rate of penetration by mobile phone it can be easily surmised that the  billionth mobile phone subscriber in South Asia will come forward  by the end of this year. This year is, therefore the mBillionth mobile subscriber year in South Asia. This possibility has triggered the organisation and naming of the South Asia mBillionth Award 2010 by the New Delhi based Digital Empowerment Foundation (www.defindia.net). The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has now joined hands with the regional mobile content Award creating the opportunity for developers of mobile content in Sri Lanka to be felicitated for their innovative work.

Both the mBillionth Award South Asia 2010 Jury will be held  (June 10 – 12) and the South Asian Mobile Content Conference (June 10)  and Workshop (Half day of June 11)  will be held in Colombo. The mBillionth Award South Asia 2010 Jury is the first of its kind in the region leading towards recognising and felicitating the best mobile innovations, applications and service delivery in South Asia spread across 10  core categories.

The objectives of the Award are to recognise mobile innovations and creativity; provide a platform for the innovations into benchmarking in the mobile industry;  provide a wider forum for strategic networking, alliances and partnership building; provide a South Asia Congress to exchange ideas, practices and policy strengths and mobile advocacy; facilitate in building a South Asia network towards campaign and advocacy in mobile for mass empowerment and inclusive growth.

The 10 award categories are m-Business and Commerce / Banking, m-Culture and Heritage, m-Education and Learning, m-Entertainment, m-Government, m-Health, m-Environment, m-Inclusion, m-News and Journalism and m-Travel and Tourism.

m-Business and Commerce / Banking

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for support and optimization of business processes; creation of new business models in commerce like m-commerce, business to business, business to consumers, internet security and other areas; supporting Small and Medium Enterprises on the marketplace, m-Banking like banking services, Microfinance and micro-banking through mobile devices and so on.

m-Culture and Heritage

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for preserving and presenting cultural heritage in line with the challenges of the future; demonstrating valuable cultural assets clearly and informatively using state-of –the-art technology and new media platforms on mobile as media. Supplying digitized products and services; offering the users of this world’s variety of languages and its cultural diversity; supporting movement from one-way to two-way, from single to multiple players, interactive cultural diversity and the synergy between analogue and digital platforms on mobile applications and devices.

m-Government

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for empowering citizens and serving public services clients, fostering quality and efficiency of information exchange and communication services in governmental and public administrative processes; strengthening participation of citizens in information society decision making.

m-Education and Learning

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for empowering the education paraphernalia; transforming schools, universities and other educational institutions through interactive, personalized and distributed learning resources; providing  education services and education management systems for the rural based educational institutions, especially schools. Servicing the needs of the learners to acquire knowledge and skills for a complex and globalizing world; creating active m-learning communities and target models and solutions for mass training and  supporting first steps in multimedia for better learning societies.

m-Entertainment (sports, games, music, movies, fashion, lifestyle etc.)

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for delivery of entertainment, games, sports, music, songs, fashion and contemporary lifestyle. Supplying digitized entertainment products and services; entertaining the user in this world’s variety of languages and multi-media, peer to peer engagements for entertainment content creation, interactive games, application for sharing local music, movies, songs and in the process empowering the masses through sharing of entertainment content.

m-Health

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for developing the consumer-centred model of health care where stakeholders collaborate to offer and manage health and environmental issues including health care system.  Government’s initiatives to offer tele-health information and services to reach masses through mobile and its integrated applications including value added services (VAS).

m-Environment

Use of mobile content and services to encourage sustainable models of living; smart use of mobile media to promote green energy; new mobile approaches to monitoring and reducing pollution; mobile portals and social media applications to encourage climate controls and holistic environment-friendly habits.

m-Inclusion

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for supporting integration of haves and have-nots – individuals, groups, differently abled citizens, women and children; remote locations, regions into the Information Society. Reducing the “digital divide” and “content gap” between technology-empowered and technology excluded communities; bridging society through basic, simple and also multimedia-enabled rich content.

m-News and Journalism

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for (multi-lingual) news broadcasting in all possible media format like text, audio, video, SMS, MMS etc.; Reaching masses and enabling people with mobile devices for citizen journalism for local and regional news through interactive applications like twitter, facebook and other web 2.0 million enabled applications including Mobile 2.0 dynamic media technology applications.

m-Travel and Tourism

Use of Mobile and complementing applications and embedded services for enriching the information society by aggregating digital content pertaining to travel and tourism thus helping to create knowledge rich information society; offering of travel and tourism related information and services like real time travel bookings, location and transport information, including through GPS and GIS. Award nominations criteria and jury process

The mBillionth Award is open to mobile network operators, mobile content aggregators, mobile phone manufacturers , mobile / mobility application developers, mobile content and information developers, mobile marketing and mobile entertainment providers who are working towards the better governance, rural development and for the betterment of masses by facilitating utility and value added content and services.

There would be a dedicated website of the award where, beside all the necessary information, one could find the Nomination Form for the award. The nomination could be applied online as well by downloading the form and sending the filled nomination form as email attachment. ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). 

Awards / Jury Criteria

Content: quantify matching quality of content and services delivery, relevance of content and its utility value, local language;Interface: usability, user friendly, easy navigation features, interactive nature;Technical specialty: Innovative design with unique features of applications having user appealing features;Design: Design of applications and devices having larger user preference, aesthetic value with or without multimedia and other features with or without audio-visuals, graphics;Accessibility: cost effectiveness; matching social and economic capital of different user groups with diverse needs in different income brackets.

Award stakeholders / potential groups who can file nominations

Mobile device creators, Mobile network operators, Mobile content aggregators, Mobile phone manufacturers, Mobile /Mobility applications developers, Mobile content and information developers, Mobile marketing and Mobile entertainment providers and Mobile service providers.

Nominations for m-Billionth award 2010

Nominations are invited from willing mobile applicants until 31 May, 2010.

Online nominations can be filed at mbillionth.net or mbillionth.in. Alternatively, the nomination form can be downloaded at this site and sent with complete details filled at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

This article appears in the FT of today (26.05.2010) (slightly abridged)

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