Ericsson Worldwide

Top prize at the Ericsson Application Awards won by team from Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland

Global student competition generated over 700 registered users and 120 registered teams from 28 countries

The Ericsson Application Awards, designed to inspire innovation and encourage mobile application development, have awarded the top prize to a team from Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland for their CallerProfiler application.

CallerProfiler demonstrates how web based facilities such as social networking sites, and mapping can be combined with network based information such as Cell ID and caller identifier to deliver increased user value and experience.

Robert Mullins, project leader for the winning team, explains: "CallerProfiler uses information available on social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook enabling phone users to immediately see the context of the caller, and understand who they are. When a new caller makes contact, the application will offer an automatic link to their information and opens up the opportunity to broaden social networks."

The Waterford team of Robert Mullins, Kieran Ryan and Mark Williamson won the top prize of EUR 20,000 beating finalists from Italy, who developed an application for parents to locate children, and a team from China who designed a travel planning app.

Mullins added: "We developed the application prototype for the Android handset but it can be easily adapted to run on other platforms such as iPhone, Symbian and Windows mobile. We believe that one of its key commercial and technological strengths is that it has the potential to become a generic application used on any mobile device".

Congratulating the team on winning the competition, John Hennessy, Managing Director, Ericsson Ireland, said "Continued collaboration between industry and academia, as showcased at Ericsson's Application Awards, is an important step towards enabling a smart economy – something we are keen to continue to build on in Ireland. We were delighted to see the students from WIT being recognized for their innovative "CallerProfiler" application, well done."

The jury panel was made up of industry figures including the head of Ericsson Research, the editor in chief of Magazine Mobil, a Professor of Human Computer Interaction and the former technical architect and CTO of Spotify.

Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 1 billion subscribers and has a leading position in managed services. The company’s portfolio comprises of mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices.

Ericsson is advancing its vision of "to be the prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 75,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 209 billion (USD 32.2 billion) in 2008. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.