WaveMarket takes home Mobile Incubation Week Washington, D.C. title

By Brian Hoskins

In the most closely contested Mobile Incubation Week to date, WaveMarket pulled out a dramatic victory in the fourth Mobile Incubation Week in Washington, D.C. September 28-October 2. The event featured a strong line-up of startups, ranging from an enterprise-focused project management tool to a mobile application focused on skincare for women. Spry took home the Team Spirit Award, capping an intense week-long marathon by all teams. Follow our Twitter site for the play by play.

The week started off with a feature on ABC News on Mobile Incubation Week and the launch of Windows phone and Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Alex Housley from Rummble, a MIW London alumnus, joined me for the news segment on ABC’s Ahead of the Curve.

 

Following a similar format to our previous Mobile Incubation Week events in Mountain View, London, and Singapore, the week was a mix of educational workshops, 1:1 business coaching, technical support, and development sprints. Featured sessions included a chalk talk on Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Marketplace for Mobile, How to Work with Mobile Operators led by Sprint, and How to Get the Most out of Mobile Incubation Week led by Rummble. The 1:1 business consulting sessions focused on business plan improvements, opportunities to partner with Microsoft, and pitch refinement for our final judging on Friday. Two technical experts from Microsoft’s Premier Consulting Services were on-hand to answer questions, give advice, and speed development time.

Final judging took place on Friday and included a diverse panel with a wealth of experience in the mobile industry, including: Michael Avon from Columbia Capital, Saj Cherian from Valhalla Partners, Jackie Luo from Sprint, Dayakar Puskoor from GlobalOutlook, and David Steinberg formerly at Swapdrive and now advisor to Core Capital.

Special thanks to our partners for the week, including Sprint, Muranosoft, and Corpus Mobile. Murano and Corpus supported with onsite staff and offshore developers during the week.

Most importantly, congratulations to our startups for a job well done. All five companies developed a working Windows Mobile application from scratch or greatly improved their Windows Mobile application during the week. Mobile Incubation Week is part of Microsoft’s continued efforts to find and support great startups on our platform. These developers, selected from over 150 applicants to participate in the event, showed tenacity and talent getting the job done this week. Congratulations to all our finalists!

· mTools: mTools is working with Microsoft on a mobile content management tool for Windows Mobile. With mTools, you can effectively manage and share files, contacts, settings, and bookmarks for end users and enterprise making your mobile life style easier. Sign up for an account for free, https://mtools.guiang.net

· Spry: Spry is comprehensive insight for software projects. Spry brings the real-time activity stream into the world of software development and helps teams make better decisions.

· Wavemarket: Wavemarket is building, Veriplace, a platform that provides a comprehensive, secure API for location-enabling your web or mobile application with WiFi, Cell ID, and GPS location data from mobile devices, unlocking LBS opportunities for both developers and their users. The Veriplace Location Tag is a smartphone application for Windows Mobile devices, enabling battery-optimized periodically pushed locations, asynchronously on-demand pulled locates, and geo-fenced location alerts. Users maintain complete control of their privacy preferences, have an audit trail, and can revoke or amend authorization at any time.

· mySkin.com: MySkin finds products that work for your skin. With mySkin’s mobile app, you answer a series of questions about your skin. mySkin.com’s proprietary technology returns a highly customized combination of products at various price points that are right for you. You can maintain a journal where you take pictures, note products that you used and track changes in your skin via a simple report. All data are transferred to your account online and can be easily accessed via your Virtual Shelf.

· My Kid is Safe: MyKidisSafe is the single application that caring parents need to keep their kids safe. Features include: Sexting monitor, location-based services, blocking texting while driving, scanning pictures for nudity and much more. Parents can have comfort that they have the information to help their kids avoid pitfalls from unwanted influences.