Following on from Curtin’s highly successful statewide WApp Awards in 2011, the oZAPP Awards will this year cast the net nationwide to find Australia’s best mobile application concept.
Finalists will be invited to Perth to pitch their concepts to a panel of international industry leaders in February 2013. The winners will share in a prize pool of over $200,000 worth of resources to turn their concept into reality.
If you have your own concept, you will need to enter before Friday 9 November 2012. Entry details are on the oZAPP website.
Curtin Director of IP Commercialisation, Rohan McDougall, said the success of last year’s WApp Awards meant that there was now significant momentum and interest to take the awards to a national audience.
“Last year’s judges were extremely impressed with the quality of applicants for the WApp Awards, with many commenting that the calibre of entries highlighted the quality of innovation coming out of Western Australia,” Mr McDougall said.
“Hosting the oZAPP Awards in Perth will provide the opportunity for us to draw an audience of the world’s leading investors and entrepreneurs to our city, including a host of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and business leaders specialising in the technology and innovation sectors.”
Venture capitalist and Curtin Visiting Professor Bill Tai will chair the awards, and will be joined a high profile judging panel including Lars Rasmussen of Facebook and Othman Laraki of Twitter.
“Australian software developers are now able to reach massive worldwide markets due to the global reach of smartphones, in a very scalable way because of readily available bandwidth and ‘the cloud’,” Mr Tai said.
“Recently a number of startups from Australia have proven their worthiness on a global stage and as a result that have attracted funding from international sources. I’m very excited to be part of this initiative by Curtin University to add fuel to this fire.”
Mr Rasmussen, Director of Engineering at Facebook says, “Australia has a growing and vibrant tech startup scene increasingly able to have world-wide impact. I am really excited to be part of oZAPP and can’t wait to start seeing the submissions!”
Curtin student Tim Kenworthy received first prize at the 2011 WApp Awards for his Big Help Mob concept, designed to help coordinate volunteer activity across Australia.
