The award recipients are wireless companies and technologies from across North America that have proven to improve user experiences and operational processes.

The winners are:

Taking Care of Business – Public Sector: In Motion Technology (based in Vancouver, BC):

In Motion Technology provides cognitive wireless systems enabling public safety organizations to communicate life-critical information while in motion. In Motion’s vehicle-area networks dynamically sense and select the best network enabling an emergency medical response professional to send a patient’s electronic health record from an ambulance to a hospital while en route, a police officer to access video or driver records from a patrol car, a fire fighter to access building blueprints at the scene of a fire and a municipality IT director to provide the communications infrastructure to support these types of applications.

Taking Care of Business – Private Sector: Mobile Complete (based in San Mateo, CA):

Through Mobile Complete’s DeviceAnywhereTM, content providers are able to develop, test, and monitor applications across the diversity of handsets and global operators with an ordinary Internet browser. Users no longer need to invest in device labs or even be physically present in the network.

Taking Care of Yourself – Home and Entertainment: SurfKitchen (US base in New York, NY):

SurfKitchen is uniquely focused on enabling MNOs to deliver a superior mobile data experience by offering user-friendly interfaces to ensure simple, fast and intuitive discovery, consumption and repeat usage of mobile data services.

Taking Care of Yourself – Sports and Recreation: Limbo 41414 (based in Burlingame, CA):

Limbo 41414 has a solution that combines user entertainment with targeted advertising for media and MNOs, to increase ARPU for mobile operators. The flagship product, Limbo Auction, is a text-message-based game where users compete against other live players to find and retain the lowest, unique bid™ (the lowest bid that no other person has bid).

Taking Care of the Community: ComVu (based in Vancouver, BC):

ComVu’s automated PocketCaster system makes it one-button easy to broadcast live video from a mobile phone, archive it on a server for later viewing, and instantly publish to online communities, blogs, and TV broadcasters for breaking stories.

“Mobile data revenues have consistently lagged in the North American marketplace, and the results of this contest speak loudly to the fact that the market here is trending toward a more dynamic mobile experience,” said Tracy Allard, regional VP of North America for SurfKitchen. “The results of our WINBC award-winning deployment at Orange show that deploying an on device portal that provides a simplified, user-centric experience has led to a dramatic recovery of ARPU through increased consumption of data services.”

Runners up in WIC’07 are as follows:

Taking care of business – public sector: Gogomo – Metadata Management
Taking care of business – private sector: Innoviti Embedded – ZigBee point-of-sale (PoS) wireless solution
Taking care of yourself – home and entertainment: Real Dice Inc. – Real Dice World
Taking care of yourself – sports and recreation: Loc-Aid - Loc-Aid ACE
Taking care of the community: Rave Wireless – Rave Guardian

The winners were selected by an impressive panel of judges, including Tom Nyberg (Nokia Multimedia), Chris Langdon (TELUS), Ray Gilbert (Alcatel-Lucent), Oliver Starr (Guidewire Group), Madeline Duva (3rd Eye Consulting) and Ken Blakeslee (WebMobility Ventures).

“We received great entries from excellent contenders across all five categories for this year’s contest,” says Shana Korotash, Executive Director of WINBC. “The companies entering this year continue to push the agenda to deliver practical solutions to organizational and everyday problems. We’d like to congratulate the winners and thank the judges for their efforts in pouring over the entries and in bringing their experiences and views to the selections.”

Open to Canadian and American wireless developers and solution providers that have deployed a wireless solution, contest entries were submitted in one of five categories:

Taking Care of Business:
Public Sector: a solution that showcases new processes or models, improves productivity and/or saves money in the public service (utilities, health, government, fire or police services).
Private Sector: a solution that showcases new processes or models, improves productivity or facilitates commerce in the private sector.
Taking Care of Yourself:
Home & Entertainment: a solution that entertains or facilitates life at home.
Sports & Recreation: a solution that showcases wireless in a sport, recreation, fitness or wellness setting.
Taking Care of the Community:
Community & Citizenship: a solution that serves to make our lives better, easier or simply more enjoyable.

Entries came from all corners of North America, including California, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Florida, Washington DC, Massachusetts, New York, BC, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario.

A benefit valued at $100,000, Wireless Excellence winners are rewarded with targeted exposure in media and at trade shows, inclusion in a special case study publication, and a one-hour mentor session with the panel of judges during CTIA Wireless.

“We are honored to be recognized for technology that improves operational processes, user experiences and life-saving services to the public,” said Kirk Moir, president and CEO, In Motion Technology. “This further validates the need for our technology that helps people better communicate while in motion.”

WINBC is the producer of WIC’07 and the contest is supported by key industry leaders Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, TELUS and IDC, and marketing partners CTIA WIRELESS 2007, RCR Wireless News, FierceWireless.com, Wireless Industry Partnership, Outlook4Mobility, CCNMatthews, SymbianOne and Forum Nokia.

“Wireless companies across North America are proving that their creative and innovative solutions are driving economic and social changes not only on our continent, but around the world,” comments Tom Nyberg, Director of Product Marketing, Multimedia, Nokia. “We’re happy to see the Wireless Innovation Contest go from strength to strength and are proud to work with WINBC and other industry leaders to raise the profile of wireless innovation in North America.”

The winners and runners-up were recognized at an award reception held yesterday evening at CTIA Wireless. The case study booklet of winning and runner-up entries is available at (URL). The fifth annual Wireless Innovations Contest 2008 (WIC’08) will be calling for entries in November 2007.

About WINBC

WINBC (Wireless Innovation Network Society of BC) is the producer of WIC’07. WINBC is the focal point for wireless in BC and a leading industry association in Canada. British Columbia has a 25-year history of successful wireless design and innovation and has grown to over 250 wireless companies representing all areas of the wireless value chain from infrastructure and devices to enabling software, enterprise applications, games and peer-to-peer solutions. Companies include Sierra Wireless, Nokia, Digital Dispatch, Colligo, Air G and others. To find your wireless partner go to: www.winbc.org.