NAVTEQ Announces EMEA Winners For Global LBS Challenge(R) Developer Competition

Mobilizy GmbH takes the top prize with Wikitude Drive and receives euro 35,000 in cash as well as euro 560,000 worth of data, tool licenses and services

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NAVTEQ

Feb 17, 2010, 03:33 ET

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile World Congress -- NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, last night announced at an award ceremony that Mobilizy is the Grand Prize Winner of the Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) edition of the 2010 NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge®. Austrian-based Mobilizy Gmbh (www.mobilizy.com) won with their mobile LBS application, Wikitude Drive, which is a turn-by-turn navigation system based on NAVTEQ® maps that utilizes an augmented reality camera mode and text-to-speech instructions. Mobilizy was the top winner over eleven other finalists who were each evaluated by a distinguished panel of judges comprised of executives from leading wireless and technology companies.

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Two Runners-Up also selected by the judging panel include:

First Runner-Up: Mobitee (www.mobitee.com), France – Mobitee is a GPS golf assistant that allows you to find the nearest golf course, follow route guidance via NAVTEQ maps, know the distance to each green and calculate your score.
Second Runner-Up: M2Mobi (www.m2mobi.com), The Netherlands – Nulaz is a social information source that allows you to see where people, places and events are located around you.

The Grand Prize Winner for EMEA as well as First and Second Runners-Up received over $2 million US (euro 1.4 million) worth of prizes combined from NAVTEQ and sponsors in addition to an opportunity for worldwide exposure for their LBS application.

In addition to the overall winners, special recognition awards were presented by NAVTEQ for outstanding achievements in specific categories:

Best Use of Location-Based Advertising: Telmap™, Israel - Telmap5
Best Touch User Interface (UI) Application: ZorroGPS®, China – ZorroGPS Live
Best API Creation: Mobilizy GmbH, Austria – Wikitude Drive

Special recognition awards were also presented for outstanding achievements by event sponsors. Mobitee won two sponsor-awarded recognitions including:

Best App for Use of Tanla License Manager, selected by global sponsor Tanla, and
Most Innovative Use of Graphics, selected by global award sponsor Imagination Technologies.

"We have seen mobile applications, and specifically, location-enabled solutions, play an increasingly important role with consumers and businesses," expressed Jeff Mize, executive vice president, Global Sales, NAVTEQ. "The quality of judges and sponsors, who are a part of this year's Global LBS Challenge, reinforces the interest in location-based solutions and we look forward to continued diversification of applications in the LBS space."

About the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge®

First launched in 2003, the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is a worldwide competition conducted by NAVTEQ Network for Developers™ (NN4D), daring application developers around the world to build innovative location-based services (LBS) using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ® maps. Integrating the accuracy and richness of NAVTEQ digital map data and LBS content facilitates the timely evolution of the next wave of location-aware applications. The Global LBS Challenge has become the premier event in the LBS industry for shining the spotlight on global LBS innovation and opportunity. Over 32% of the finalists from the past six years have gone on to receive venture capital funding or launch commercially-distributed applications. For more information on this year's competition, go to www.LBSChallenge.com.

About NAVTEQ

NAVTEQ is the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data that enables navigation and location-based platforms around the world. NAVTEQ supplies comprehensive digital map information to power automotive navigation systems, portable and wireless devices, Internet-based mapping applications and government and business solutions. The Chicago-based company was founded in 1985 and has approximately 4,400 employees located in 195 offices and in 44 countries.

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