Swisscom and ICTnet present Innovation Award for the best university dissertation in the area of ICT

On 1 July 2009, Swisscom, in collaboration with ICTnet, presented the third Swisscom Innovation Award for the best university dissertation in the area of ICT. The three graduates Christoph Mäder, Michael Läderach and Alain Preibsch from Berne impressed the jury with their dissertation “Location Based Service Framework” to secure the CHF 10,000 prize. For Swisscom, the award is an important part of the long-term promotion of young talent and innovation.
The Swisscom Innovation Award is an incentive for ambitious students in the field of information and communication technology. The competition is open to all students who wrote a dissertation for a diploma or bachelor’s degree from a university affiliated with ICTnet, and the award recognises dissertations that show above-average commitment and present practical results and findings.

This year’s winning project deals with the following areas:
As part of the dissertation “Location Based Service Framework” from students at the Berner Fachhochschule, a system was developed for the simple setup of GPS services. The aim was to enable offerings from different service providers to be used with all mobile devices from all manufacturers. This system allows position-based services to be developed more easily than ever before, for example to show good restaurants in the vicinity of the user’s current position, using a Web portal for user and service management, a Windows Mobile Client and a search engine.

Eight dissertations were submitted this year, five of which were shortlisted. They were all evaluated based on a variety of criteria. Above all, the jury looks for a consistent focus on a subject from the area of information and communication technologies. A high level of creativity and innovation is also important as well as a high degree of feasibility of the ideas presented (functionality). It is also important that the results and findings have clear practical relevance (business relevance). Following preselection by a committee of experts, the three best dissertations were selected to be presented by the authors to a three-person jury.

The Swisscom Innovation Award is intended to promote talent and reward outstanding achievement, and is presented every year to either an individual or a team. As well as the prize money, the winner(s) receives a certificate as confirmation of the award. The prize winner(s) not only receives a financial benefit but also improves their chances on the job market and in their professional life.

More information on the Swisscom Innovation Award and the three best dissertations is available at www.swisscom.com/getintouch and www.ictnet.ch.