In an international competition to find the most innovative SIM card application developers, 80 teams from around the world are through to the second round, 15 of which are South African.
Gemalto's SIMagine 2007 competition, now in its eighth year, is designed to stimulate the development of Java-based SIM applications, especially in the developing world.
It is not known how many concept-entries were originally received by Gemalto, but 80 ideas proved worthy enough to continue to development stage.
Gemalto's local partner for the project is the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), at Wits University. The centre's CEO Rex van Olst says the competition introduces students and small businesses to the types of applications that can run on SIM and smart cards.
The Gemalto concept acceptances were followed up by a technical training seminar for the successful local candidates on the JavaCard Development Kit and GSM applications early in November, he explains.
"I know our Wits teams are busy completing their entries and have started live testing of their applications. The deadline for submitting the entries is this Thursday (7 December); but unfortunately I don't have any information on how other SA teams are faring at present."
The top five finalists will be flown to Barcelona for the 3GSM World Congress and exhibition in February, and the judging of the eventual winner will be done at the exhibition, notes Van Olst.
Some of the project titles among the South African entries are: JavaCard-based Health Care System, Mobil-e-Com, Morabaraba Game (the popular African "noughts and crosses" game), SMS e-mail Profile Manager, MySMS, and Call Screening).
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