At the Challenge kick-off, Winston Guillory, senior VP of Navteq welcomed the crowd and provided a short state-of the-industry recap of the location-based services market. Guillory noted how LBS have matured and that as a result, Navteq is now serving some 7 billion maps and route planning transactions annually. Customers are from every corner of the business market and include such names as Fed-Ex and UPS to name a few. He noted that in North America there are now roughly 10 cellular GPS solutions available to customers and that leading carrier Sprint/Nextel has provided a big boost to the market with their clever and aggressive marketing of LBS to their customers. Drivers of LBS include:

• Availability of Location technologies
• Memory capacity
• Device convergence
• Robust mobile platforms

Market drivers such as robust developer tools and the commercialization of applications have made this the right time to issue an LBS Challenge! For the first time, this year there will be 2 challenges with separate prizes and separate winners. Each LBS Challenge will see creative and hot applications showcased and offered to carriers – note: members from leading wireless carriers make up the panel of judges. A big carrot to developers considering taking up the LBS Challenge is the access to these carrier reps, additionally, representatives from venture capital firms will also be in attendance. Perhaps the biggest benefit though is the fact an application that wins in any given category is essentially getting a stamp of approval and validation from the industry… this is huge!

Panel of Judges

This past spring at CTIA Wireless in New Orleans, representatives from leading wireless carriers, mobile device manufacturers, and other leading wireless businesses made up a panel of judges in the LBS Challenge. Once again, an esteemed panel of judges has been put together to judge the 2006 LBS Challenge. Representatives on the panel come from all segments of the LBS value chain and include a group that is dedicated to making a large commitment of their time. Four judges are once again returning, with panel made up of representatives from the following companies:
Battery Ventures, Hatch Ventures, Nokia, Sprint/Nextel, US Cellular, Yankee Group, Verizon, and Bell Canada.

Panel of judges for the 2006 LBS Challenge

The judges will select applications in 4 categories, winning applications being chosen based on excellence in utility and usability. With upwards of 200 applications likely expected to be entered in the Challenge, the first round of judging will serve to whittle the group down to a manageable number of semi-finalists grouped into the 4 categories:
- Business applications
- Entertainment & Leisure
- Navigation
- Social Networking

Created in 2003, the LBS Challenge has served to provide validation to the ideas of numerous developers and served as a forum to showcase excellence in LBS solutions. The challenge stimulates the proliferation of location-services by bringing together leaders in the mobile arena… this year the LBS Challenge will divide and conquer by expanding to include a North American and European Challenge. Some key dates follow:
- registration ends December 2, 2005
- registration forms must be received by December, 9, 2005
- application entries must be submitted by January 27, 2006 (North America)
- application entries must be submitted by December 22, 2005 (Europe)
- application submissions must be received by Feb 3, 2006
- Winners in European challenge to be announced Feb 13-16, 2006 at 3GSM Congress, Barcelona, Spain.
- Winners of North American Challenge to be announced at CTIA Wireless, April 5-7, 2006 in Las Vegas, NV. Official judging, April 3-4, 2006.

The LBS Challenge is sponsored by a group of companies all of whom offer location enabling solutions and mobile platforms. Developers are encouraged to take advantage of tools and resources offered by these sponsoring companies. Some of the enabling solutions that will be used include:

http://locationservices.autodesk.com/navteqchallenge/