Recently, Otago innovation Ltd (part of Otago university) held the event called ‘Appstar’, an app idea competition. The competition was so people with a great idea for a smart phone app could enter it online and the top 5 would battle it out live, dragons den style.
Each finalist had five minutes to present their app idea to a panel of judges and the audience. The winner received $20,000 towards the development of the app and a cut of the profits.
Overall, there were 108 entries, including a last minute ‘oh why not’ entry from me.
Carry on reading to see who won!
Alright, so the title of this entry may have been a little mis-leading. It was a huge surprise to everybody (just me), but my entry did not make it to the final stage. However, the winning app was very interesting. To some people.
The winner was an idea from university staff member Judy Bellingham. Judy is from the music department so it is no surprise that her app is called “Read, See, Sing”.
Judy’s app is designed to help people learn to sing and to read music, exciting stuff.
The peoples choice award went to an app called “Intollerapp”, which is a bar-code scanning app to help people who suffer from one of the many food intolerances. This guy won a new iPad.
Despite not winning with my last minute entry the event was pretty exciting. $20,000 is big money, but its fair to say that the university was the winner on the day. Part of winning the competition was that the ownership of the idea and the app goes to the university. Judy will get a percentage of the profits though.
It seems that making a smartphone app is becoming increasingly popular and more accessible, people are throwing fairly big money around to get them developed.
I am sure there are a lot of smart kiwis with a great idea for an app but not the skills or funds to develop it. In that sense, the ‘Appstar’ competition was a great idea. If there are any similar competitions around you, I would encourage you to get involved.
Awesome stuff! Great to see a Otago Uni staff member win. I love being a student at this Uni.
(Booster_13 has made 9 comments)
I hope to see more of the competitions around. I’ve got what I consider to be a great idea, and have started the early stages of development but simply do not have the knowledge or time to get it completed.
(GC has made 4 comments)