03/04/2007

Six original ideas for the promotion of Innovation on the Internet were awarded in the final phase of the Innovation Competition "Innovation 2006" which was organized by ΟΤΕΝΕΤ, under the auspices of the Special Secretariat of Digital Planning of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance.

The goals of the competition, which began in June of 2006, were to promote innovation on the Internet, to reinforce and further expand the use of the Internet, as well as to support, acknowledge and reward creative ideas. The competition attracted great interest: in total 2,626 proposals were submitted in the two categories, Inventiveness and Business Activity. It is noteworthy to mention that for every valid entry to the competition, ΟΤΕΝΕΤ deposited EUR 10 into a special account. The total amount raised was allocated for the purchase of technical equipment for the Laboratory of Experimental Pharmacology at Athens" Medical School. Through the three phases of the competition, three winners were distinguished in each category. They were presented with awards of EUR 50,000, EUR 25,000 and EUR 10,000 respectively.

Category: Inventiveness

First place in the "Inventiveness" category went to Eirini Doutsi and Nikolaos Mitsou for the "News Monitoring - NeMo" proposal, an innovative on-line product which provides global information for its users, going beyond simple citing of the most significant news items, through an analytical presentation of their development as well as providing the capability to locate the critical events/news along their timeline, allowing for a clear understanding of each topic.

The second prize went to Iosif Ieroklis for "Daily MashUp", an internet application which displays on maps the everyday problems of each area as they are submitted by residents, local government and other local agencies. The goals of this service are the direct interaction of citizen-states, the reduction in citizen service waiting times, the substitution of bureaucratic procedures with electronic ones and effective interagency communication.

The Butterfly team (Ioannis Vlahogiannis, Kostis Bourboulas and Myrto Chliova) took the third prize for the proposal "Now you finally have the power to change the planet". The website they created (www.karmaeffect.org) aims to be an interactive space whose users will be able to propose ecological, technological or other actions which will be carried out once the participation of a specific number of other users is secured. The best actions will be rewarded in the virtual, as well as in the real world.

Category: Business Activity

The first prize in the category went to Pericles Venakis for the system of on-line "groves" MyGarden, the users of which will be able to manage their property through internet requests carried out the next day by the staff of MyGarden. The users/clients will ensure quality agricultural produce while, at the same time, having the opportunity to participate in a process which offers a retreat from the pace of city life.

The second prize went to the proposal of Vasileios Nikolopoulos for an on-line System of Optimised Management of Energy and Energy Resources. The proposed portal will include a new method of automated fluctuating pricing for consumers according to their energy profile, electronic management of energy consumption, internet energy conservation, the capability of free "electronic exchange" and transfer of electric load and units between consumers. This will create an on-line Energy Market and the basis for the provision of on-line energy services for companies or individual customers, where each user manages his energy consumption and receives energy services through on-line offers and simple internet messaging.

The proposal entitled "Lower Cost-Solutions for Cost Reduction of Internet Service Providers" by Stylianos Mamagakis lifted the third prize in the category. It involves the development of specialized software tools which manage the equipment of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) more efficiently so they use fewer computing resources and, consequently, lower their costs for carrying out each service.

Source: OTENET