ATLANTA, May 2, 2007 – Fifteen students at The Georgia Institute of Technology were awarded $100,000 in cash prizes for creating next-generation mobile applications as part of the 2007 IMS Research Competition, co-sponsored by AT&T and Nokia Siemens Networks, and supervised by the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) and the Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center (GT RNOC). In all, nearly 40 students participated in the competition’s final round.
The competition, which began last October, awarded prizes to the six student teams that created the most innovative mobile communications applications for use by families, campus communities, young adults/teens, or business users. To develop these applications, students utilized the 3G/IMS laboratory at The Georgia Institute of Technology, a $5 million state-of-the-art communications lab that opened last October through a co-sponsorship by Nokia Siemens Networks and AT&T. The lab serves students and researchers as a test bed for the creation of third generation IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) convergence applications and services that bring together audio, video and data over a variety of networks.
“Nokia Siemens Networks, AT&T and The Georgia Institute of Technology have created a unique learning experience and an innovative approach to technology education,” said Ron Hutchins, associate vice provost for research and technology and chief technology officer at Georgia Tech. “By giving our students a hands-on opportunity to develop, experience and operate new technologies and applications and see them at work, the IMS Research Competition and the 3G/IMS lab play an important role in helping develop future innovators in the field of mobile communications.”
The competitors covered a diverse range of wireless technologies and use cases to achieve commercial appeal for various demographic groups. Award winners included:
Grand Prize and Campus Community Category Winner: Christian Menkens from St. Wolfgang, Austria; Matthew Rhodes from Angleton, Texas; Anders Davoust from, Vaxjo, Sweden and Nikls Kjellin from Enkoping, Sweden will be awarded $35,000 to split and each will be offered internships by Nokia Siemens Networks on work that will leverage their project experience, for their creation of SoCoNet, a social campus community network that gives students access to lecture materials, campus events and location-based social networking.
Four teams were named first prize winners in the remaining categories, and each will be awarded $15,000 to split among team members:
Business User Category Winner: Dannon Teremiah Baker from Augusta, Georgia; David McCann from Lawrenceville, Georgia and John Etherton from Jacksonville, Fla. were awarded for their creation of Distributed Asset Tracking, an inventory and asset management application that enables camera-phones to scan barcodes and track inventory, without the need for separate RFID or scanning devices.
IMS Enabling Category Winner: Vinesh “Vinny” Ramachandran from Dalton, Georgia was awarded for his creation of Extensible Triggering Services, an application that allows a network to make changes to a particular phone’s settings, based on the user’s presence and preferences.
Young Adults/Teens Category Winner: Gaurishankar “Shanks” Krishnan from Bangalore, India and Shivam Goyal from Bhopal, India were awarded for their creation of mobMedia, a location-based media sharing and social networking application.
Family Category Winner: Devin Hunt from Atlanta and David Jimison from Washington, D.C. were awarded for their creation of Kinship, a distributed live video sharing application that instantly uploads video to a server and also provides video sharing, location-based video collaboration and chat features.
Honorable mention was awarded to the team of Robert Watts from Dunwoody, Georgia; Andrew Trusty from Atlanta and Priyanka Mahalanabis from Decatur, Georgia for their creation of Family Game Suite, a network gaming server application that allows a family to play games against each other and simultaneously chat on their mobile devices. This team will be awarded $5,000 to split among team members.
“We congratulate all of the students who competed in this contest for their achievements and innovations in mobile communications,” said Mark Louison, North America Region Head, Nokia Siemens Networks. “By 2015, we estimate 5 billion people worldwide will enjoy the benefits of being connected all the time, and mobile applications are key to this notion. The students who participated in this competition have a great opportunity to be among the future innovators who bring a unique set of products and solutions to people around the world.”
”This program is a win for all involved. Through this competition, we support individual Georgia Tech students, Georgia Tech as a whole, and promote IMS technology, which will allow the industry to deliver fixed mobile convergence to its customers and usher in a new era in multimedia capabilities between mobile devices and traditional computers and televisions,” said Jim Ryan, vice president of consumer data products, AT&T's wireless unit.
For more information on the IMS Research Competition and a copy of the Official Rules, visit http://www.forgedbyims-research-competition.com.
Supporting Links:
AT&T: http://www.att.com
Georgia Institute of Technology: http://www.gatech.edu
Nokia Siemens Networks: http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com
Georiga Electronic Design Center: http://rnoc.gatech.edu
Editors Note:
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an open industry standard for voice and multimedia communications over packet-based IP networks, defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a global standards body for 3rd generation mobile technology. IMS is a core network technology that can deliver Internet and IP multimedia services to consumers, across any type of access technology, including DSL, WiMAX, GPRS, WLAN and others. Operators deploying IMS can deliver new services to consumers at lower costs and with IMS-based services, consumers can enjoy a richer communications experience, with the ability to access information and services using virtually any type of device and any type of access technology – and communicate with virtually anyone, anywhere, anytime.
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies, are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. Among their offerings are the world's most advanced IP-based business communications services and the nation's leading wireless, high speed Internet access and voice services. In domestic markets, AT&T is known for the directory publishing and advertising sales leadership of its Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators in such fields as communications equipment. As part of its three-screen integration strategy, AT&T is expanding its TV entertainment offerings. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at www.att.com.
© 2007 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Knowledge Ventures.
About Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked ninth among U.S. News & World Report’s top public universities, Georgia Tech educates more than 17,000 students every year through its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech maintains a diverse campus and is among the nation's top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute. During the 2004-2005 academic year, Georgia Tech reached $357 million in new research award funding. The Institute also maintains an international presence with campuses in France and Singapore and partnerships throughout the world. More about Georgia Tech at http://www.gatech.edu
About GEDC
The Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) supports world-class research that fosters the development of new communications technology in wireless/RF, wired/copper and fiber channel applications. Home of the nation's largest university-based mixed-signal research team, Georgia Tech's GEDC collaborates with more than 45 member companies and federal agency partners, conducting approximately $12 million in research each year. More about GEDC at www.gedcenter.org.
About GT-RNOC
The Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center is a research program working in the areas of measurement, management, security and control of networks, network services, computational resources and enterprise systems. It includes researchers and facilities from across Georgia Tech as well as partners from industry and other institutions. The GT-RNOC leverages the unique position of GT as a pre-eminent network and network service hub in the state, the region and increasingly in the world. It provides researchers with access to this unique network infrastructure. It provides network administrators and service providers with an invaluable tool for developing and testing new management solutions in a cutting edge environment. More about the GT-RNOC at http://rnoc.gatech.edu.
About Nokia Siemens Networks
Nokia Siemens Networks is a leading global enabler of communications services. The company provides a complete, well-balanced product portfolio of mobile and fixed network infrastructure solutions and addresses the growing demand for services with 20,000 service professionals worldwide. The combined pro-forma net sales of €17.1 billion Euro in fiscal year 2006 make Nokia Siemens Networks one of the largest telecommunications infrastructure companies. Nokia Siemens Networks has operations in some 150 countries and is headquartered in Espoo, Finland. It combines Nokia’s Networks Business Group and the carrier related businesses of Siemens Communications. www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com
|
