X
Tech

Victorians get 'appy in competition

The Victorian Government application design competition, "App My State", came to a close yesterday with Victorian Premier John Brumby announcing the winners.
Written by Luke Hopewell, Contributor

The Victorian Government application design competition, "App My State", came to a close yesterday with Victorian Premier John Brumby announcing the winners.

smale2.jpg

John Brumby with Jason Smale (Credit: Victorian Government)

The $35,000 first prize was awarded to Jason Smale for his app "Which Bin?" Smale's iPhone app matches product barcodes against a database and tells the user which bin to put the item in, providing a "quick answer to a common [recycling] problem", according to Brumby.

Second place went to a group of friends and their app, "Transportle", which suggests transportation routes based on financial costs of travelling and presents the environmental impact from the journey.

The "Stop Crime" app, which communicates with Crime Stoppers to report incidents quickly and securely, won first prize in the youth category. The "Remind Anyway" app, which provides users with alerts from their to-do list based on their global positioning system (GPS) location, took out the popular choice award.

The competition wasn't just limited to developers, however. Entrants with no technical knowledge could still submit to the "ideas" category. Submissions included an app called "iDrive" — a guided driving tour complete with audio commentary, and "Free Melbourne", which shows users free events happening around them in Melbourne based on their location.

Judges looked for innovation, accessibility and uniqueness of design and dissected how the application might benefit Victorians when awarding over $100,000 in prizes to over 22 independent developers.

Editorial standards