The worldwide contest, which has established a reputation as the premier event in the location-based services (LBS) industry, challenges application developers to build innovative location-based services which work with mobile phones and/or wireless handheld devices using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ maps.

Over 316 companies registered for this year's Challenge globally, of which twelve advanced to the final judging in the European division. The finalists represented a broad spectrum of wireless applications and were selected based on commercial feasibility, functionality, ease of use and design. The final judging panel, which included executives from Autodesk, Deutsche Telekom, GPS and Co, Innovacom, Nokia, O2, Telecom Italia, Truffle Ventures, Vodafone, and WebMobility, based their decisions on the same key criteria.

Nokia has globally sponsored the Challenge for the third consecutive year and together with Autodesk in 2008.

“This has been a very exciting time for GyPSii,” said Dan Harple, CEO of GyPSii. “In September 2007 we signalled our intent to become the leading global platform for the convergence of search, location and personal content as a new form of geo-social networking. Winning a NAVTEQ LBS Challenge award is satisfying because of the intense competition, coupled with the expertise of the panel of industry-leading judges. It means a lot to our whole team.”

He continued; “We are now recognised as the pre-eminent industry player with a rapidly growing global GyPSii community. We have visitors from more than 55 countries and we continue to lay down our global footprint across multiple handsets, geographies and affinity communities with major strategic partnerships worldwide. People can expect to hear more significant news from GyPSii in the coming months.”

GyPSii generated considerable industry buzz at the Mobile World Congress. CNN’s on-the-ground reporter, Adrian Finighan interviewed Mr Harple and posted on his CNN blog that GyPSii is: “a mobile social networking platform which, I’m willing to bet, will soon be as big a phenomenon as Facebook. Bigger, perhaps.”

In February, GyPSii made a series of major announcements, significantly increasing its global presence. In China, GyPSii announced partnerships with China Unicom, one of the two mobile operators in China with more than 150 million subscribers and Shanghai Rannuo to launch its GyPSii service for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Additional to this was the news of GyPSii’s partnership with Chinese device manufacturer Dopod to provide a range of location-based information and services to members of its Dopod Club community.

GyPSii also moved into India, the world’s second largest and fastest growing mobile market, and announced an agreement with Broadway Pvt. Ltd. (www.broadwayindia.in), to offer the full suite of GyPSii services to India’s 233 million mobile subscribers.

The GyPSii application is already fully compatible with Windows Mobile phones, the Blackberry range from RIM and Nokia’s flagship consumer smartphones. GyPSii recently announced web support for Apple’s iPhone and continues to add new devices on a regular basis.

As well as extending its product range, GyPSii has also reached beyond English speaking markets and is available in ten languages including Korean, Russian and two forms of Chinese.

To sign up to GyPSii users can visit the company’s website (www.gypsii.com) or from a phone browser at http://gypsii.com/m.

About GyPSii

GyPSii is the market-leading mobile lifestyle application, connecting people, places and communities across networks and devices. GyPSii provides a geo-location social networking platform and services for mobile, web & set-top box devices, and is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (www.gypsii.com).