Three Israeli mobile app companies will be heading to Hong Kong in June to take part in the final round of the Asia Smartphone Apps competition to be held on June 14-17th.
The three companies, Tekoia, Castle Builders, and E.Soof will each compete in one of three categories, Advertising and Marketing, Creative Lifestyle, and Games and Edutainment. Each of them faces competition from two other companies.
The winners will all receive a unique opportunity to showcase their technologies, meet investors and potential partners in Asia’s smartphone industry, and attend seminars and workshops. This is the fourth year in a row that the Asia Smartphone competition takes place, and this year ISRAEL21c will be the Israel judge at the event.
Tekoia has developed the Sure Universal Remote, an app that allows users to operate IR appliances, such as TV’s, cable boxes, air conditioners and wifi smart appliances like smart TVs, media streamers and security cameras from their phones.
The company launched the product in October 2014, and received more than 5 million downloads in 18 months.
E.Soof addresses the serious and deadly issue of driving distraction with its app, Bazz. Today, an estimated 25 percent of all car accidents are caused by driving distraction, and the main cause of this distraction is text messaging.
Bazz which was founded by Eli Polak, enables drivers to listen to text and voice messages hands free while driving, and respond with simple intuitive voice commands.
Castle Builders has developed a simple and easy to use platform called Bookclip for the public to create their own interactive apps with no coding or design skills.
Bookclip, which runs on any tablet or computer through a browser, has already been successfully used by Castle Builders to create over 30 highly popular apps for companies like DreamWorks Animation and Sony Pictures, including Kung Fu Panda 2, Hotel Transylvania, LazyTown, Garfield and Hello Kitty.
The free public version is now in beta version and should be available by the end of June.
The Israeli companies will compete against app developers from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Other Israeli entrants, including Project Ray and Keshet Media Group won merits in the competition.
“This is the third time in a row that Israeli apps take a big portion of the qualifiers in this contest,” Elad Goz, Israel’s economic representative in Hong Kong, told ISRAEL21c. “This strengthens our exposure to the Chinese and Asian app markets.”
The three-day competition is organized by the Hong Kong Wireless Technology Industry Association (WTIA) and co-organizers from seven other nations – Israel, Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Last year, three Israeli companies won awards at the contest: Winkapp, which has created an app that can read hyperlinks on paper, won silver prize; LabStyle Innovations won bronze with its app, MyDario, which turns your smartphone into a glucose monitor for diabetes; and Augmented Games also won bronze for its game, Shift, which links a players’ virtual life with their real one.