Winners Announced for 2013 BlackBerry Achievement Awards

This year’s BlackBerry® Achievement Award Winners have been announced! The BlackBerry Achievement Awards are presented to organizations that are doing business in new and innovative ways with BlackBerry products and services. The awards were classified into five categories: App of the Year, Putting Customers First, Mobile Innovation of the Year, Making the World a Better Place, and Entrepreneur of the Year.

Learn about the exceptional mobile solutions from our 2013 winners and finalists:

BBin & SkyPark Cafe venture earns the runner-up Entrepreneur of the Year award

Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Winner: Nobex Technologies Inc
Many BlackBerry enthusiasts are familiar with Nobex Technologies’ innovative mobile app that allows people to listen radio stations on the go and share the experience and chat with friends through BBM. Nobex Radio for BlackBerry 10 continues its inventiveness with a newly designed app. It adds podcast functionality that allows people to search and subscribe to thousands of podcasts, with notifications sent to the BlackBerry Hub when new episodes are available.

Finalists:

App of the Year Award

Winner: PriceCheck Pty Ltd
PriceCheck Mobile for BlackBerry® 10 takes shopping to a whole new level by using a BlackBerry 10 smartphone to do the legwork and price comparisons, so customers don’t have to be near a computer or store. The app accesses pricing for more than 30 million products on sale through the Internet and online stores in South Africa. Built using HTML5 and JavaScript® source code, the app is wrapped with Cascades and uses some feature plug-ins.

Finalists:

Putting Customers First Award

Winner: ING DIRECT Canada
ING DIRECT offers today’s financially conscious customers a unique mobile banking experience on their BlackBerry 10 smartphones. As well as making it convenient and secure to conduct transactions, the app focuses on increasing savings with “Orange Alerts” that push notifications to the BlackBerry Hub when balances reach pre-determined levels. Other features such as “Small Sacrifices” encourage positive decisions about saving and financial information by sharing info through Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) and YouTube.

Finalists:

Mobile Innovation of the Year Award

Winner: DIRECTV Latin America
As a large satellite TV provider in Latin America and the Caribbean, DIRECTV makes customer service for their five million customers a priority. Their app for BlackBerry smartphones allows their 4,000 technicians to manage an entire service call and work order process from their phones, and supports Bluetooth® technology to validate and adjust satellite signal strength. The app is helping DIRECTV improve customer satisfaction, reduce paperwork and technical calls, as well as decrease return visits to customer homes.

Finalists:

Making the World a Better Place Award

Winner: e-Cycle LLC
e-Cycle LLC has a simple, but meaningful mandate: offer enterprises a way to retire millions of mobile devices responsibly, by protecting data security, preserving the environment, and generating buyback revenue. As a recipient of e-Stewards® certification, e-Cycle is on the frontline of ensuring that harmful, toxic chemicals from mobile devices are not sent to landfills but are instead recycled safely. Their buyback program reimburses costs for devices that can have more value in the market, which offsets the costs of a company upgrading to new devices.

Finalists: