New SoLo app Rockets to victory: Nokia N97 widget competition winner announced

From the Press Release :

Monte Carlo, Monaco – David Emmanuel Castro Guerrero from Mexico and Plusmo from the United States were today named one of the hottest software designers and developers in the world having beaten strong competition to win the Nokia N97 Widget Competition. Created to celebrate the much anticipated launch of the Nokia N97, Guerrero’s winning application, was Rocket, a social location widget (SoLo) which shows the nearest three friends in any given place was built on-site by the application developer.

Guerrero’s victory was announced after a 24-hour Nokia Hackathon event where an elite group of world-class developers raced to build the shortlisted apps live and against the clock. The contest held in association with Forum Nokia’s Calling All Innovators competition took place between 28-29 April in Monaco at the Nokia Developer Summit.

Not only does Guerrero win a brand new Nokia N97 pre-loaded with his widget on the home screen, the application will also have prime status on the homepage of the new Ovi Store, which launches soon, and will be free to download for Nokia N97 owners in all Ovi Store launch countries. These include Australia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.

The Nokia N97, which will begin shipping in June, defines mobile internet personalization. The 3.5 inch touch display with full QWERTY keyboard means friends, social networks and news can be fully customized with frequently updated widgets of favorite web services and social networking sites.

The competition’s runners up – Marco Lobb from Italy, who designed the widget, Shoppy, a shopping list application and built on-site by Inova IT from Slovenia and Bruce Hopkins, who designed Travel Planner and built by PavingWays from Germany, will also be featured on the homepage of store.ovi.mobi.

“It’s mind-blowing to think that my application could potentially be used by millions of people on their Nokia handsets,” commented David Emmanuel Castro Guerrero. “It’s been such a great experience to watch these masters at work and see how an app is build from start to finish.”

“We received over 1,300 submissions, many of which were exceptional. Pitting the best Forum Nokia developers in the business against each other and watching the apps being built in front of summit delegates was so exciting,” said Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Services. “By distributing through Ovi Store by Nokia, developers benefit from Nokia’s global scale to provide a potentially lucrative and unrivalled opportunity at reaching a global audience of consumers.”

To view all of the submissions and for more information visit www.forum.nokia.com

The full list of the ten shortlisted widgets and designers is:

- David Emmanuel Castro Guerrero (Mexico) – Social Location Widget
- Marco Lobb (Italy) – Shopping List Widget
- Bruce Hopkins (USA) – Travel Planner
- Eric Liu (Canada) – Location Based Sightseeing/Events
- Andrew Clarke (UK) – Price Comparison Widget
- Gabriel Hall (Canada) – The World Around Me
- Daniel Kleine-Albers (Germany) – Location Based Public Transport
- Porfirio Busto BenÃtez (Paraguay) – Now On TV!
- Dmytriy Kovbasyuk (Canada) – Fuel-Up!
- Tuba Tig (Turkey) – What Is Your Favourite Food?