Today, with little time and money, good developers are able to create cool, lightweight applications, which help solving particular collective problems from the point of view of the users.  Web 2.0 guru Tim O’ Reilly encourages developers to “work on stuff that matters”. There are plenty of examples, yet such initiatives appear to be developed mainly in the UK and US.

IBBT aims to encourage developers to create similar tools in Flanders, in coincidence with its annual conference iMinds, and inspired by initiative such as Appsfordemocracy.

The INCA (Innovative and Creative Application) Award is an open competition for developers, encouraging them to build applications which are both “cool and useful”. Winners will receive a prize in money and visibility at the iMinds conference.

What are we looking for?

• Websites, widgets, mashups, APIs, standalone applications, applications for mobile devices.
• They have to be developed on purpose for this prize.
• They have to contribute to solve collective and social problems, in a wide and non-restrictive sense. They can for example facilitate transport, promote health, protect the environment, ensure government accountability. See examples here.
• They have to be available and usable by Flemish citizens at least as working prototypes.
• They can be open source or not, with no preference for platform and technologies.
  

What can you win?

The 10 best applications will be selected by a jury of professionals and will receive a total money prize of 20.000 Euros as described here. The best one will receive the INCA Award, during a public ceremony, at the closing session of the IBBT annual conference iMinds.

Who can participate?

Participation is open to any individual developer or organization, from the public and private sector. Participants from outside Flanders are very welcome, but the applications must be usable in Flanders. Each participants can submit more than one application.

How to participate?

Participants will submit their application through the dedicated form on the website.
The participant will be required to post a link to a URL hosting the application, and (if possible) a link to a short video showing how the application works. The deadline is April 27th, 12 p.m. (Local time in Belgium, GMT +01:00 ). All information is available in the Rules section of the website, and additional clarifications will be shared through the website FAQ.