ngpay is India’s first mass market mobile commerce service. Functioning on every telecom network, consumers all over India are able to bank, pay bills, book tickets, make donations, shop, order food, and more - from a single place on their mobile handsets. Transactions with 80+ businesses across 10 sectors can be completed following a simple download of a free, 64kb application to a mobile handset. ngpay is easy, fast, and secure. Upon selection of a merchant, the user is guided through their m-commerce transaction - step-by-step - via ngpay's interactive, menu-driven interface. In this way, ngpay is able to deliver the true PC-Based e-commerce experience with mobile internet technology. Once the user gets to the payment stage, multiple options are available - all securely stored in ngpay's mobile wallet. All conventional forms of electronic payment are possible, including redeeming ngpay loyalty points. Data and over-the-air transactions are fully encrypted and require multi-level authorization to be accessed. Users receive SMS and, where applicable, email verifications of their transactions, and can view their transaction history on the ngpay main menu. ngpay is one of the few services able to bring low-cost electronic commerce and financial services to the rural and working class. For more information visit the website www.ngpay.com.
You Tour uses the latest generation iPods to offer a multimedia tool which enables tourists to conveniently and fully explore the cultural heritage of their holiday destinations. In an educational, entertaining and interactive way, the user is guided round their chosen destination, their route enriched by a wealth of content. Not only are the tours well documented with location maps, digital reconstructions, photographs, illustrations, animations, videos and instructions; a regularly updated directory of museums, restaurants, shops and services ensures that the tourist wants for nothing. Under the title ‘survival kit’, information on embassies, currency, and emergency phone numbers can be accessed. And that’s not all: You Tour ensures that the hapless tourist is never stuck for words, offering an audio/photo dictionary which contains useful phrases in the local language. Available in multiple languages and for an ever-growing number of cities and heritage sites, this comprehensive package can be downloaded free of charge from the iTunes store. For more information visit the website http://www.utour.travel/utour/home.html.
Malaria kills over a million a year: a simple SMS could prevent 20% of those deaths. In order to fight the deadly consequences of the growing global counterfeit pharmaceutics market, MPedigree enables anyone in a developing country with access to a cell phone to authenticate their drugs before use. It works via a simple SMS, accessible by default on all phones, and available on all cellular networks. Akin to the very popular scratch card method for replenishing cellular talk-time, users reveal a single-use code on drugs and SMS it to a provisioned mobile shortcode, which, in turn, generates an automated verification response. There is no cost to the drug patron – genuine drug manufacturers are eager to bear the entire cost due to the entrenched benefits they stand to reap when counterfeiters are driven out of the market. Armed with a simple cell phone, users can finally rely on the quality of their medicine. For more information visit the website http://www.mpedigree.org/home.
Royal Court Affairs is an electronic evaluation system, which works by receiving, evaluating and short-listing job applications via SMS technology and a mediator programme. Applicants can apply for Royal Court of Affairs vacancies by sending an SMS with their MoMP (Ministry of Manpower) registration code (a database containing citizens’ CV details) and their chosen job code. A mediator system matches the applicant details from the MoMP with the job requirements from the RCA recruitment office. If the match is successful, the candidate is short-listed. Should the candidate fail to satisfy any of the requirements, the application is rejected and an SMS is sent with valid rejection grounds. Once the candidate satisfies all the requirements, he receives an SMS with a registration number and congratulatory message. The whole process is incredibly fast and efficient, normally taking 5-10 seconds from receipt of the SMS to response. For more information visit the website http://www.rca.gov.om.
Esoko is an innovative technology that links mobile phones to web-based management systems. It enables agri-business, agri-associations and other agri-projects to systematically build polls, and automatically scouts participants for critical field information. The scout technology can be programmed to send or receive text messages from participants in the field in order to track activities and inventories or evaluate crop behaviour. The project incorporates an SMS-based and Java-based application that connects mobile handsets with a powerful online toolset, enabling large-scale tracking from the field, and dramatically reducing the cost of real-time distribution and recovery of responses from thousands of participants. Already almost 800,000 price records have been entered from 10 countries, making this the largest SMS-based MIS system on the African continent. Over 12,000 registered users are profiled in the system, and almost 500 markets are covered. For more information visit the website www.esoko.com
