This article was published on June 2, 2011

What app would you build with €150,000?


What app would you build with €150,000?

At the end of April, during The Next Web Conference, Vodafone announced the opening of its Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2011, a contest to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups.

Open to seven markets, Vodafone Mobile Clicks allows any startup in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, Turkey or the United Kingdom that has a mobile site, service or application to apply and compete for a €225,000 prize fund. Last year CardMobil, a service that allowed users to replace their points, membership and loyalty cards with a mobile app, won the competition, the year before that Layar scooped the prize.

This year, top prize will be €150,000, leading us to speculate what sort of app would create with that kind of money. Here are a few apps that we would like to see made, we would also welcome your suggestions:

Secure Card Details

I don’t know about you, but I have a number of credit and debit cards with a few different banks, many of which sit in my wallet for that time when you decide to jump in with both feet and book a holiday or buy that extremely expensive gadget.

The problem with this is that I never remember what the secure Chip-And-Pin number is for the card when I come to use it. Now, I could put them on a small piece of paper and put it into my wallet or I could write them into the Notes app on my iPhone – neither of which are particularly secure.

I would therefore look into creating an app that allowed me to safely and securely save sensitive card information and give me the option to order each one of my cards based on the frequency of which I used them. All of the information would be passworded so that if my phone was stolen, the information would remain untouched.

Gyro/GPS Fitness Tracker

There is no shortage of fitness apps on smartphone app stores, but I it would be cool if there was an application that could utilise both the iPhone’s gyroscope and GPS chip to assess your activity during the day and suggest ways to increase the amount of exercise you do.

The gyroscope would assess your position at certain intervals during the day, working out if it is flat on a surface or in your pocket as you walk down to the shops or vacuum the house. The GPS tracker will match your the activity on your gyroscope to your location, suggesting times when you should get up from your desk, walk around the house or do something to get the blood pumping.

We all need something that will stop us from sitting around and being lazy, especially when you aren’t at work. This app could show activity levels to shock you into how little you are doing; it would calculate calories burned, distances travelled amongst other things, putting them into charts to show you how energetic or lazy you really are. Think of it as the smartphone equivalent of a pedometer.

Who Are You?

You’re at a party and somebody you have spoken to in the past suddenly starts to make his/her way over. You know you added this person on Facebook or followed them on Twitter but you don’t want to be rude and ask them for their name.

So what do you do?

You take out your “Who Are You?” app and you quickly load it up before the person gets to you, because that person either a) has the same app and have been tracked to the same location or b) checked in on Foursquare, Facebook or tweeted a geo-stamped message, you are able to get a tailored list of people who are there, including the person who you really want to chat to but don’t want to suffer the indignity of asking them for their name, when you obviously should have remembered it.

Because it sits on top of the major networks, it can incorporate any service which may be popular in the area or on the App Store at that time.

Your Suggestions

Do you think you have a good idea but wanted feedback on whether it could work? Why not submit it in the comments and see what the writers and readers here at The Next Web think of it. With a few suggestions and a push in the right direction, your app could be the next Angry Birds!

If you are an app developer that is looking for investment to take your app to the next level, the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition is the perfect way to get your app noticed.

We wrote five reasons why you should enter, more information can be found on the Mobile Clicks website.

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