Pedro Campos, an independent mobile developer, has been awarded a prize of €75,000, on top of the €25,000 local prize he picked up from the first round of the competition.
Beating off competition from seven other country winners, FlickrShow was awarded the top prize for its innovation and the great user experience it offered. FlickrShow accesses Flickr in an unprecedented way, offering stunning slide slows and allowing you to search photos by keyword, username, colour and even by location using your phone’s GPS system.
Campos, aged 26, only took up mobile app development nine months ago and was attracted to the Vodafone 360 platform due to its open web standards policy and its cross platform reach, which he felt offers an intelligent and developer-friendly approach to the market. Based in Porto, Portugal, he is planning on using his winnings to invest in a local Portuguese web development company, to expand its mobile section.
Campos said: “Winning the final stage of the Vodafone App Star competition is brilliant news. I made sure my app was not only easy to use but could help people in their everyday lives and it’s great to see that it’s been so well received by customers across Europe. Competitions like this really give developers a chance to shine and I’m grateful to the team at Vodafone for all their support. I’m looking forward to developing more apps for Vodafone 360 in the future.”
Second place in the competition was awarded to a group of Italian students from Politecnico di Milano, for their travel app, Cool Travelling. Raffaele Bisogno, Marco Cavone, Tommaso De Pace and Stefano Francavilla, who are currently studying for a Masters in Computer Science, will now receive a further €25,000, taking their total prize winnings from the Vodafone AppStar competition to €50,000. Cool Travelling lets you plan a trip around Italy in a simple and cost effective way providing information on a range of travel services such as train and plane tickets, weather forecasts and accommodation guides.