Johannesberg and Madrid SmartCamp Winners Drive Job Creation, Gaming Innovation and Mobile Business Solutions!

I have loved the IBM SmartCamps, which are pitch competitions with incredible talent!
These camps brought a huge talent pool of startups to showcase to judges worldwide, thank you to all the startups who participated! Today we're taking a look at a few exciting innovations coming from Johannesberg and Madrid before announcing our ten finalists, at the end of the week, who will move on to the next stage of IBM SmartCamps.

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Congratulations to M4Jam from Johannesberg and both Jugo and Visualtis from Madrid. All three of these startups very much deserved their winner status for the solutions that they bring to the market.

About the startups:

1. M4Jam (Johannesberg) is a micro jobbing platform. They launched their solution as a platform as a service model taking the concept of EARN to existing communities and enabling people to earn extra cash while going about their daily routine by using apps that they are already using most.

2. Jugo (Madrid) believes that play will become the dominant way of human interaction within the next five years. By bringing game elements into everyday activities of organizations and individuals around the world, Jugo introduces a whole new level of purpose and passion to the workplace.

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3. Visualtis helps “mobilize ” existing information systems to manage them from a smartphone and further help clients manage any aspect of their business from their smartphone or tablet.

To learn more about these exciting companies, follow them on Twitter: @visualtis, @m4jam and @playjugo.

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Please continue to follow my blog to read more about the ten startups who will move on to the next stage of IBM SmartCamp 2015!

 


Are you the next CitiMobile Challenge Champion? Registration is open now!

Can you help to transform banking as we know it?  The answer is YES and here's how...

IBM is proud to be a strategic sponsor of the Citi® Mobile Challenge - a quest to find developers and designers to create new and innovative FinTech solutions with Citi's digital platforms.  After successful events in the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa, the Citi® Mobile Challenge is now starting in Asia Pacific and is hosting Demo Days in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Sydney - and registration is open now!

Using Bluemix, you can apply your skills to develop, design and impress in two categories:
Consumer solutions:  create innovations which give consumers personalized, intuitive products and services that transform how they think about banking.
Business solutions:  develop new financial technology tools and services to meet the needs of small businesses, large corporations, institutions, organizations or governments.

Developers using Bluemix will be ahead of the game with a platform as a service (PaaS) that gives them simplicity, speed, agility and critical tools - all without the overhead of setting up the underlying architecture.  And, as strategic sponsor, IBM is there each step of the way, giving Challenge participants a wide spectrum of face-to-face and virtual product education, consulting and coding assistance by top experts - throughout the competition.

Finalists will compete for an opportunity to take their technologies into production with Citi’s support, plus a share of USD $100,000 in cash awards and a suite of services from Citi Mobile Challenge sponsors.  Selected participants will showcase their concepts at live Demo Day events.

So, be a part of the banking transformation!  Go to http://www.citimobilechallenge.com/ to register for the Citi Mobile Challenge (registration closes September 2, 2015).  Rally your team and get everyone registered to use Bluemix here:  https://ibm.biz/IBMCMCAP15
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The 3-D Ultrasound Medical Scanner That Runs On Your Smartphone

Imagine that every doctor’s office – perhaps even every pharmacy – had a low cost imaging device running on a smartphone.  The scanner would be able to provide instant, real-time pictures inside damaged limbs and inside other parts of the body, significantly reducing the time taken for diagnosis.

No referrals, no hospital visits and faster treatments.
Several low-cost medical imaging devices driven by smartphones are now arriving. One of the most interesting approaches is from the Butterfly Network which proposes to make a small ultrasound scanner able to run on a variety of smartphones.
One issue with low-cost portable scanners is that family doctors and pharmacists will need training to interpret scan results.  But scanner makers are also likely to offer a real-time on-line interpretation service to assist.  And for a fee.  Compliments of Ray Hammond -- a true futrologist!