Educational Institutions Use Yahoo!(R)'s Mobile Development Platform to Create Mobile Widgets for Leading Corporate Brands

A total of 24 teams from six Singapore tertiary institutes participated in the competition to build the best mobile widgets for four corporate brands - DBS Bank, Kellogg Asia, Malaysia Airlines, and UEEEU.com. The participating schools were Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Polytechnic (NP), Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NAP), Singapore Polytechnic (SP), and Temasek Polytechnic (TP).

The teams started developing their mobile widgets after the YMDA kick-off meeting in September, where they received instructions and widget requirements from Yahoo! and the four sponsor companies.

All teams presented their mobile widgets in front of a judging panel comprising experts from Yahoo!, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), and the sponsor companies. Submissions were judged on usability, quality, innovation, effective use of technology, and relevance to the companies and their customers.

‘This competition is aligned with Yahoo!'s company-wide strategy to open up our platform to third party publishers, developers and advertisers,’ said David Ko, senior vice president of Connected Life, Yahoo! Inc. ‘We believe that Yahoo! Blueprint is the best way to create mobile Internet services and run across hundreds of devices and reach hundreds of millions of users, offering consumers the best mobile Internet experience, regardless of device. We expect this will change the world of mobile development moving forward.’

‘Through this competition, Yahoo! is proud to be able to play its role in connecting Singapore's next generation of developers with some of the world's leading corporate brands, as we continue to enable and lead the mobile ecosystem,’ added Ko.

Corporate sponsors' winning mobile widgets

At today's YMDA award ceremony, the four winning widgets were announced, one for each of the sponsor companies.

The four winning YMDA widgets for 2008 are:

· For DBS Bank - ‘Simple’ from Nanyang Technological University, developed a mobile widget to help customers conveniently locate branches and ATMs, and access information on bank products and credit card privileges

· For Kellogg Asia - ‘The Jinx’ from Temasek Polytechnic created a widget that prompts people to take part in the Kellogg's ‘Special K Challenge’. Their mobile widget includes calorie and BMI calculators, healthy tips, Special K recipes, and a personal progress planner

· For Malaysia Airlines - ‘We Mobile’ from Singapore Polytechnic developed a mobile widget to encourage travel with Malaysian Airlines. Their mobile widget incorporated interesting and useful features to assist users with their travel plans.

· For UEEEU.com - ‘Chlorophyll Studios’ from Nanyang Polytechnic created a travel-related mobile widget to make customers' travel experience more convenient and enjoyable. Their mobile widget includes a language translator, a world time indicator, destination guides, hotel/ vehicle search and reservation functions, and a travel planning tool

Members from the four winning widget teams each received a cash prize and will have their winning widgets showcased on the mobile widget gallery in Yahoo! Go 3.0. The ‘Best in Show’ mobile widget will be announced live at the show and will be posted in an updated version of this press release at http://mobile.yahoo.com/newsroom.