du, the integrated telecom service provider in the UAE and Microsoft, have announced the results of the 'Let your dream mobile application out' Competition that was organized for students of Colleges and Universities in the UAE in Feb 2008. The competition comes as part of du’s corporate social responsibility strategy to encourage creativity in UAE youth. The five teams who made it to the final round were Ajman University; American University of Sharjah; Dubai Women’s College and BITS Pilani University.

 

BITS Pilani University was presented with this year’s award in the category of Social Networking, for their winning project, a GPS Enabled Advanced Social Planner. The planner allows all information about an event to be sent along with a map to the person invited, with the option of sending an RSVP as well. The application facilitates organizing and managing events and was developed for individuals and businesses. The students are also working on integrating the application with events happening on Facebook.

 

du was also awarded a commemorative trophy by software giant Microsoft for its efforts and support to the Imagine Cup.

 

Receiving the trophy on behalf of du, Hala Badri, Executive Vice President Corporate Communications at du said: “At du we believe in the importance of the role that CSR plays in society. Our CSR strategy is committed towards the UAE youth and we are helping them unleash their creativity through the 'Let your dream mobile application out' Competition, with an aim to create a new generation of mobile applications developers.”

 

Commenting on their success, the winning BITS Pilani students said: “We were keen from the start to present something that is unique and can easily be used and spread around. We exerted all our efforts in this application and we are truly thrilled with the success we have achieved and are very grateful to du for organizing this competition that really does unleash our creativity. The prize money will also help us in further developing the application and moving forward with creating new ones.”

 

du presented each member of the winning team with a gift voucher from Plug-ins worth 3500 Dirhams. Second place winners received vouchers worth 3000 Dirhams and third place winners got 2500 Dirhams vouchers. Fourth and fifth place received each 2000 Dirhams vouchers for each member of the team.