BAIT Awards 2016 were presented in a very strong competition of candidates in all categories this year. Mobile applications, educational initiatives and innovative projects in the IT field spring up both from developed business structures, developing small teams and high school classrooms.
According to the change in the regulation for the Special Award no applications were submitted and the award was bestowed by decision of the jury by internal nominations. Two new categories were also introduced: “Significant corporate ICT project” and the Internet of Things (IoT) category. In addition, in a move to support the activity of the younger generation, BAIT decided to extend the current “Student Award” category – in “Youth Award” in which students, who have created their own development or product in the field of information and communication technologies could also participate.
A quick look at the presented ideas undoubtedly proves that we are part of the global excitement on what the future will be in a world evolving at a very rapid pace and where the “Internet of things”, artificial intelligence and virtual reality completely change the format in which we study, work and live.
Below we present a short description of the applications for the IoT category, which is a new category but with a very close competition, the Entertainment software category, as the gaming industry is developing very dynamically in our country and across the world, and for the Startup category because the good new ideas should be supported on their path of growth to successful business development.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The award was presented to a group of young students from the Technical University in Sofia for their project Adept – a comprehensive IoT platform, inspired by the project of NASA, by which the space agency is looking for a solution to improve the way astronauts train in space. The Bulgarian development Adept is a device composed of two easy to grip parts, which may train over 90% of the muscles in the body and is connected to the Adepth Health iOS application that gathers detailed information and determines how many calories should be consumed a day, what is the current fat quantity in the body and what is the maximum power of each major muscle group. The app also provides complete information about the quality of certain food after scanning the barcode on the packaging. It is integrated with Apple Health and thus it collects information for users of all wellness applications in the AppStore. It makes a quick assessment of the overall health and can send relevant information to medical personnel if necessary. The developers of the device have already received high praise from NASA – Adept has been rated as the best solution to the challenge of fitness platform for astronauts.
In the same category Musala Soft presented its innovative platform for smart home Qivicon, developed for Deutsche Telecom. The newly-emerged Bulgarian company Pro Smart introduced its latest development – BBoil RF for energy cost saving. The unit indicates surrounding data and transmits it to the corresponding device without requiring Internet connection.
Another interesting project is MyKi of Allterko Robotics. The name comprises two similar developments: the smart child’s clock MyKi Watch, which provides the parents with permanent security on where their child is, and the pet tracker MyKi Pet, with a battery that lasts for seven days and is applicable for both rescue and guide dogs.
CocoFarm presented a product for farmers, which provides real time data on the consumption of food and water, temperature and humidity in the premises of livestock. The data is converted into information and situational recommendations after being linked to indicators of animal health and business information of the farm. The product also collects data that can serve to key suppliers for joint planning, as well as to public administration in order to improve the administrative connectivity. The small team of CocoFarm already goes beyond the Bulgarian market and attracts its first clients in Europe.
Entertainment Software
The award in this category was presented to the start-up game studio Waphoo AD with its 3D children’s mobile social multiplayer platform (MMO) with educational purpose. Google’s technological innovation – Google Cardboard – VR (virtual reality) – is implemented in the project, which makes Waphoo the first developer in Bulgaria of 3D children’s educational VR and MMO platform. The platform of new generation helps children to have fun and at the same time learn new things by intuitively finding various solutions through new game situations, applying knowledge and creativity in making different decisions in different stages. The project is for kids at the age of 6-11 years and has been developed under the guidance of a team of specialists in Suggestopedia. The platform is being developed for Android and iOS mobile devices for the Bulgarian and global market and new games with foreign language mode are to be added.
Another game for growing up children was part of the applications – LeadStreet for 7 to 12 years, which presents basic lessons in entrepreneurship and teaches them how to build strategies, make timely decisions, set goals and achieve them. The concept is that every choice children make leads to a long-term consequence, which in a well-established strategy will lead them to achieve their ultimate goal.
“Imperia Online”, the largest Bulgarian company for development and distribution of games, participated with Viber Emperors – the tenth game of the Viber application, developed by the company for Apple and Google Play. DigiMark took part with the e-Storia mobile application – an interactive guide to Bulgaria and its cultural and historical heritage. With its built-in GPS navigation and 3D visualization of landmarks, the application provides fast and accurate localization of key historical sites and routes in Sofia and displays them with augmented reality, when the user is 500 m away. Thus one can see on the phone screen how the sites have changed over different periods of time.
Startup Company
Most applications here come from teams that started 2-3 years ago by acceleration programs. Phyre consists mainly of students and pupils and its application for rebates and bonuses of consumer loyalty cards available in one place ranked first in the category of Lifestyle Android Play Store for Bulgaria and was holding a top spot in the Apple AppStore. The application displays in one screen all current promotions from large retail chains. The team’s ambition is to add a contactless payment to the features of the application, no matter which the bank or the country is, and to build a consumer’s statistics on where and how much the consumer spends. Thus Phyre will provide a universal solution for both payment and saving.
Allterco Robotics participated with the free mobile application Shelly Cloud, which controls lighting, electrical appliances, machinery and equipment and monitors the electricity consumption, humidity, temperature, what happens at home, etc.
Birlibam is application for iOS and Android, as well as a web portal for electronic business card and exchange of contacts even without Internet connection.
Virtual broker took part with innovative software in the service of insurance area. Its system is integrated with the software of leading insurance companies and is a comprehensive online solution for insurance and service both from the position of the insurance broker and the client.
The Grajdanite mobile application is the largest structured database of violations on the road in Bulgaria, which serves violation alerts and facilitates both citizens and institutions.
Daskal Bulgaria AD participated with its platform daskal.eu – the virtual classroom for interactive tutoring or courses with your teacher live in real time. The platform is based on the latest technology – WebRTC. It was quickly established on the Bulgarian market and has already started working in the USA by the brand www.yourtutor.us, with which it has been ranked among the finalists for 2016 Bett Asia – one of the largest educational events in the world. Daskal Bulgaria AD has been recently accepted in the accelerating program of Facebook – FB Start.
LeadersPlay was established in 2015 and participated with LeadStreet – game for children aged between 7 and 12 years. The game is developed to teach children how to build strategies, to make timely decisions, to set goals and achieve them.
LOYAX is an innovative platform for loyalty, which allows any business to create and manage its own loyalty programs that can be managed by email, push notifications and notifications in social networks, as LOYAX can be integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. Currently, the team is working on improving the Beacon technology that allows navigation in closed retail outlets and personalized communication with customers according to their location in the outlet.
The award in this category was presented to Tickey Mobile Solutions Ltd. for its mobile application, which enables passengers to buy and validate tickets with just one click on their phones, with no need to enter any additional information or print the ticket. Forbes called TICKEY an “innovative smart ticketing system, which is the equivalent of UBER for public transport”. TICKEY uses proximity sensors – iBeacons, which are placed in each vehicle. When the passenger gets on the bus, tram or comes close to turnstile of a metro station, the sensor detects the user’s phone and sends a notification reminding the user to buy a ticket. The sensor detects where exactly the passenger is, in which vehicle and the exact price of the ticket, and the passenger has a valid ticket with just a single touch. The technology allows personalization of each ride and building of a comprehensive user profile, data collection on traffic and congestion of vehicles that would help each municipality in the effective public transport optimization. TICKEY can function in the same way in every city in the world. It does not require any investment by municipalities and follows the principle of shared income – TICKEY turns into an independent distributor of tickets, working on an equal level with other systems. In December 2014 TICKEY won funding by Risk investment fund Eleven in the amount of EUR 25 000 and in 2016 TICKEY was part of the Swiss KickStart Accelerator, implemented its system in the UK, in Ferry Operator Fal River and started a pilot project with Metropolitan EAD, which will enable the passengers in the subway to purchase tickets travel via a smartphone.
Winners in the other categories are:
The Special award was presented to Rosen Plevneliev, President of the Republic of Bulgaria 2012-2017, for his significant contribution to the development of information and communication technologies in the country, for his unconditional support of the local talents in the field of mathematics, physics, programming and computer science, for his constant support to the Bulgarian IT sector throughout his entire mandate and for his work on the positioning of Bulgaria and Sofia as a regional hub of high technology and innovation.
Youth award, which was also opened for the first time for students, was presented to Zvezdin Besarabov, a student at the National Gymnasium of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, for his project and prototype “ArduWrite – automation of personalized human handwriting.”
Education Award – Software University Ltd. – for the largest private educational initiative to conduct a programming course in 28 cities across the country, as well as for developing a program for digital marketing and programming for children.
Public Administration Award – National Council on Prices and Reimbursement of Medicinal Products – for deployment of electronic services that enables each citizen, a pharmacy client to obtain information on which drugs are entirely or partially paid by the Health Insurance Fund and which are at lower cost in the respective group.
Corporate Social Responsibility Award – Musala Soft – for the Muffin Technology Conference, which gathers more than 2 000 software engineers and IT specialists in Bulgaria and Macedonia.
Mobile Solutions Award – Allterko Robotics EOOD – for its smart home project, called Shelly, which allows to remotely control lighting, electrical appliances at home and machines and installations in industrial buildings.
Significant Corporate ICT Project – VMware Bulgaria – for a service that can recover information systems in case of crashes and disasters. The project offers a solution based on cloud technology developed in Bulgaria, which has already been deployed in Avondeyl, USA.
The Journalist Award went to Joanna Nikolova, host of “Business Start” program on Bloomberg TV Bulgaria.
“Municipal Administration” was awarded to Sofia municipality – “Architecture and Urban Planning” Directorate – for a deployed project in the administrative services for citizens and businesses. The website users are enabled to easily find information there by various criteria. In addition, the visualization of large volumes of data that is made publicly available is optimized. For the purposes of sustainability and multiplication of the project, software with open code, content management system (CMS), cloud services are used.
You can see all applications in the categories in a special section on the website of BAIT. You can also see an interview with President Rosen Plevneliev, as well as with the youngest winner in the competition and the winners of the Journalist Award and Education Award in the video on Bloomberg TV Bulgaria.
For BAIT – established in 1995, with direct members of 100 companies, which employs a total of 11 600 ICT specialists and generates annual turnover of BGN 3.4 billion. The companies cover the whole ICT spectrum – software, hardware, telecommunications, system integration, Internet
providers. BAIT is a member of the European IT association Digital Europe, where it also has a
representative in the managing board.
For Digital Europe – represents the digital industry in Europe, brings together 56 of the largest global IT corporations, telecom and consumer electronics companies, as well as 35 national
associations, including BAIT.
