Here at IBM we’re excited to partner with 4YFN (Four Years From Now) <> to introduce an exciting new tournament designed for you as developers, and startups, to pave the way to the future of mobile application innovation (www.glovators.io)! The deadline to signup for the Tournament and Bluemix is December 11th. You’ll then have until the January 6th to submit your IoT app innovation to potentially become a global champion on stage in Barcelona at 4YFN 2016,<>

The focus of the tournament is Internet of Things mobile development innovation. You as developers have the opportunity to build a mobile application related to one of your choice of three key burgeoning fields in the IoT industry including: Smart Homes and Buildings, Connected Travel and Transportation and Smarter Healthcare. Please read on to take a deeper look at these three themes, then explore details about what the world will look like in 2025 as a result of IoT and how you can develop the skills to stay relevant and ready to embrace those changes.

Theme #1: Smart Homes and Buildings

Do you have a brilliant mobile application idea that you think can help make everyday household tasks more comfortable, convenient and efficient? Perhaps your idea is designed to make mundane household tasks more fun, or allows people to interact better with objects in the house? By choosing the Smart Homes and Buildings challenge theme, you will be revolutionizing daily life, while transforming the future of domestic life, as we know it.

Theme #2: Connected Travel and Transportation

Transporting things across the world is getting more complex by the day. Be it the family vacation or a fleet of vehicles, the logistics of every day life are only just starting to be disrupted by the data available. Do you have an idea for a mobile application that can leverage weather data, traffic flows, and whatever else you need to deliver a safer, more efficient future for everyone? If so, connected travel and transportation should be your tournament choice.

Theme #3: Smarter Healthcare

What can be done to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the healthcare system, ultimately empowering patients by improving their experience and quality of life? With continuous advancements like remote monitoring and self-care engagement, the opportunities for smarter care are endless. Choosing to build a smarter healthcare mobile application will allow you to transform the healthcare system and create new efficiencies to allow healthcare practitioners and patients to enjoy a much more efficient and streamlined medical system.

There is no doubt that building your themed application will get you ready for operating in the future. Imagine that you are in the year 2025. Ambient computing abounds, it’s a world where devices work together to support people in carrying out their everyday activities. The world in which we live will conform to our identity and react and respond to our wants and needs, noticing our reactions and stimuli. Your chosen application will lead the way in this kind of world as it relates to smart homes and buildings, connected travel and transportation and smarter healthcare.

Given the complexity of this reimagined world, not only will you as developers need patience, diligence and passion, but also skills related to both software and hardware including: sensors, actuators, processors, radios, power, memory, industrial design, OS, networking, security, UX, apps, standards, and machine learning. A successful IoT developer will need to be creative enough to think outside the box and have a working knowledge of APIs and web/mobile native apps. Visualization and integration skills will be critical as well as agile development methods and a devops approach.

Now that you have a knowledge of what’s in store for the future, please join the mobile innovation movement and develop skills for the future in the Global Mobile Innovators Tournament. Visit: www.glovators.io for full details, sign up for the Tournament and Bluemix by December 11th so as not to miss out! www.glovators.io