txtWeb Announces Winners of App2Fame Challenge 2011

Winners in Entertainment, Gaming, Social Impact and Social Networking Categories Recognized for Inventive Apps Using Intuit’s txtWeb Platform

txtWeb announced the winners of the App2Fame challenge 2011, national level developer challenge, designed to inspire the creation of innovative applications and tools using the txtWeb application platform. The contest received an overwhelming response from startup developers and students alike, with 1311 apps being deployed on txtWeb during the contest period. Winners took home a whopping Rs.7, 40,000 worth of prizes at the Awards Ceremony.

“There were several fantastic apps submitted across all categories in this year’s App2Fame challenge, and these winners truly represent the most creative and innovative developer minds," said Srividhya Ramarathnam, Business Head, txtWeb, Intuit India, “With txtWeb, we’re looking to empower the hundreds of millions of Indians who have mobile phones, but do not have regular access to the Internet by giving them access to information; we’re delighted that the App2Fame challenge has inspired so many resourceful ideas”

Developers were awarded under several categories including “Most Popular” and Judges Choice Award”. The grand prize winner under each of these categories received travel vouchers for Rs 1,00,000, and the second prize winner in each of these categories won vouchers worth Rs 50,000 redeemable at an electronics store. In addition, three third prizes in each of these categories and the best apps in the sub categories of social networking, gaming and entertainment took home prizes worth Rs 20,000.

Sandeep Bhaskar and L BalaSundaraRaman from Ideophone, a start-up company in Bangalore, working to solve commuter challenges via mobile applications, were adjudged the grand prize winner under the Judges' Choice Award for their app @Autofare that lets you know the auto fare between two places in a city via SMS. The grand prize for the Most Popular App was bagged by Praveen Dhanala, a student pursuing his Dual Degree program at IIT- Bombay, for his app @jokes that enables users to get jokes on mobile without the need of internet connectivity. Other notable apps that won second and third prizes were, @Train a one-stop app for all train travel information, and @route, an app that gives instant bus routes and directions. Another interesting app developed as part of the contest was @vturesult which lets students of Vishveshvaraya Technological University access their examination results of the via SMS.

The award for the Most Popular Social Media app went to Kameswara Venkatesh Emani, who works with an online book store in Bangalore for @connect - a complete social networking site on SMS platform. In the Most Popular Gaming app section, K Sudheer Kumar, an employee working with Nokia won the award for his app @bnc- a very interesting numerical game. The award for the Most Popular Entertainment app went to Sudheer Katta, a student from IIT- Bombay for his app called @rating - an app with which you can rate movies, view rating, add movies to the list and also view the list.

The contest was judged by industry stalwarts, Rishikesha T. Krishnan – Professor & Area Chairperson in Corporate Strategy and Policy, IIM, Bangalore, Vijay Anand – Vice President & Managing Director, Intuit’s India Development Center, Bangalore, Ramesh Ramanathan, Co-Founder of Janaagraha & Chairman of Janalakshmi, Bangalore, Shekhar Kirani – Venture Partner at Accel Partners.

Do check out txtweb’s website for more details!