Blackberry Partners Fund (BPF), the Canada-based venture capital firm which numbers Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion, Thomson Reuters and the Royal Bank of Canada among its backers, announced the winners of the BBM section of its annual Blackberry Partners Fund Developer Challenge on Tuesday.
The winning applications (apps) were selected regionally on the criteria of ‘Most Addictive Social Apps’, using Blackberry’s BBM social platform. Prizes for the challenge are valued at $3m, which represents almost a 100% rise from last year’s prize fund. This year’s challenge was the fourth annual competition.
Grand prize winners, by region were:
North America: SeaBattleSE, a BBM adaptation of the board game Battleships.
Latin America: MTV Nightfinder, a social events listing app.
Europe, Middle East and Africa: Wikitude, an augmented reality app that allows you to find information, places of interest and contacts through your phone’s camera.
Asia Pacific: Cricket with Friends, an online cricket game with attractive graphics and dynamic ball physics.
The winners of the BBM challenge will be honoured alongside the winners of the two other branches of the BPF Developer Challenge at the Blackberry Developer Conference on the 20th of October.
They join the winners of Most Innovative WebWorks App for the Blackberry Playbook and Blackberry smartphones, and Best Adobe AIR app built with Adobe Flash technology for the Blackberry Playbook.