Nokia collaborates with Sesame Street in contest

MANILA, Philippines - Save the environment, lift spirits, improve productivity, educate and contribute to a healthy lifestyle: Nokia wants 2010 to be a year of good ideas that make a difference in peoples’ lives. Forum Nokia today announced Calling All Innovators 2010, an international application development contest designed to inspire creativity and change.

Calling All Innovators 2010 features four categories for submissions that enhance the use of Nokia mobile devices in real-world scenarios:

• Eco/Being Green: apps that help to save the planet with innovative, eco-friendly uses.

• Productivity: apps that make your life easier, and help you to be more efficient, such as utilities, business, or personal finance applications.

• Life Improvement: apps that positively affect the daily lives of people living in developing countries by using the prevalence of mobile devices to teach children and illiterate adults critical skills, and agriculture health.

• Entertainment: apps that bring out your inner rock star, and show off the coolest multimedia features, including music, multimedia and games – because mobile also has to be about having fun!

Additionally, Forum Nokia has teamed up with Sesame Workshop, the producers behind Sesame Street, for the education subcategory of the life improvement category to encourage developers to create and offer applications to teach early literacy on Nokia devices to communities around the world. Sesame Workshop will offer guidance during the judging process and work with select developers to further enhance relevant projects.

“Today’s announcement is brought to you by the letter S,” said Purnima Kochikar, vice president Forum Nokia. “Teaming up with Sesame Street allows us to inspire the imagination of developers to help educate children worldwide through advances in mobile technology with quality, branded content.”

The collaboration will encourage developers to create educational applications, and possibly utilize the Sesame Street characters, for consumers around the world. As Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary, this partnership helps to extend its “longest street in the world” into the digital one. With an expertise in using media to reach children, the nonprofit is looking to mobile as the newest distribution channel of literacy-based content through accessible mass media.

Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization that revolutionized children’s television programming with the landmark Sesame Street. The Workshop produces local Sesame Street programs, seen in over 140 countries, and other acclaimed shows to help bridge the literacy gap including The Electric Company and Pinky Dinky Doo. Beyond television, the Workshop produces content for multiple media platforms on a wide range of issues including literacy, health and military deployment. Initiatives meet specific needs to help young children and families develop critical skills, acquire healthy habits and build emotional strength to prepare them for lifelong learning.

Nokia’s global developer program, Forum Nokia, connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the US, Europe, India, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com.

 “With Forum Nokia’s community – over four and a half million developers strong – we’re challenging those particularly in emerging markets to create educational tools that make a positive impact,” said Jeffrey Fleishman, assistant vice president for Media Distribution Business Development, Sesame Workshop. “We’re looking for creators who can bring a fresh perspective and local knowledge to the growing field of educational mobile applications. Our goal is to find some partners with which we can work to extend the power of Sesame Street to new platforms and places.”

“We encourage Asian developers to submit locally relevant and innovative applications that can be made available as the Ovi Store expands to every corner of the world,” said Kenny Mathers, head of Developer Relations and Marketing, Forum Nokia, APAC.

More details about all the categories for Calling All Innovators, special prizes and judges can be found on the contest web site at: www.callingallinnovators.com.

Submissions from developers for the 2010 Calling All Innovators contest will be accepted starting Feb. 1. Deadline is May 18.