Forum offers cash awards for NFC competition winners

The NFC Forum has put out a call for entries for this year’s Global Competition, with cash prizes on offer for the winners. It has also produced a new white paper, elected a new chairman and vice chairman and held a press and members briefing at Cartes — where it announced that a certification mark is due out next year as part of a new compliance programme…

PRIZE SURPRISE: Cash will be awarded to 2009's NFC Forum Global Competition winners
PRIZE SURPRISE: Cash will be awarded to 2009 NFC Forum Global Competition winners

The NFC Forum has put out a call for entries for this year’s NFC Forum Global Competition which offers prizes for both ‘best NFC service of the year’ and ‘most innovative NFC research project of the year’. Entry in the best service category is €200 for forum members and €350 for non-members, while students and research institutions may enter the research project category for €50. Entry forms and competition details are available now and cash prizes are on offer for the two winners. The closing date for entries is January 30, 2009 and the winners will be announced at WIMA in Monaco on April 23.

The association has also produced a new 24-page white paper, “Essentials for Successful NFC Mobile Ecosystems,” which takes a ‘big picture’ approach to describing the world of NFC and what is needed to realise successful NFC mobile services, including a technical framework, key technologies, typical use cases, and the structure of the overall ecosystem. It is available to download free of charge from the NFC Forum website.

At a meeting for the press, analysts and members at Cartes in Paris, the NFC Forum introduced its new chairman, Koichi Tagawa , who heads up Sony FeliCa as general manager of its global standards and industry relations department in Japan. Simon Pugh, who runs the MasterCard advanced payments group’s centre of excellence for mobile and is responsible for the development and execution of the organisation’s strategy for mobile commerce, joins Nokia‘s Gerhard Romen as one of the NFC Forum’s two vice chairmen. (The board also includes Martin Bührlen of NXP, who acts as secretary and treasurer).

“As prominent leaders of one of the world’s largest NFC technology providers and a top payment solutions provider, respectively, Mr Tagawa and Mr Pugh possess the vision, insight and global perspective to continue the NFC Forum’s progress in fulfilling its mission,” said outgoing chairman Christophe Duverne, who also revealed at the Cartes meeting that the association is to introduce a new certification mark “soon” as part of a compliance programme that is due to roll out in 2009.

“Under the leadership of Mr Duverne the NFC Forum has grown from a promising idea into a vibrant, productive, global association comprising over 1600 individuals from 150 member organizations,” said Koichi Tagawa. “In the past four years, Mr Duverne has led the NFC Forum in releasing 11 development specifications that have established the foundation of interoperability necessary to create a successful and substantial NFC industry.”

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