GTS wins best in South Asia for ‘Colombo Ride 2.0’ at the mBillionth awards
July 28, 2010 10:52 am
In keeping with the growing
mobile boom in Asia, the Digital Empowerment Foundation along with the IT
ministries of India and Sri Lanka hosted the first ever South Asian Mobile
Content awards in New Delhi on the 23rd of July 2010.
The jury for the awards took
place in Colombo and they spent three days going through 165 nominations from
across South Asia. Participating countries included Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Awards were given to mobile
applications and services in 10 categories: m-governance, m-inclusion, m-news
and journalism, m-education, m-entertainment, m-tourism, m-business, m-health,
m-environment and m-heritage. The awards were announced at a day-long seminar
and evening ceremony drawing over 400 attendees.
GTS (http://gtslk.com) was able
to bag the award in the ‘m-entertainment’ category for their revolutionary
Sinhala mobile game ‘Colombo Ride 2.0’ (http://games.lk) which was released on
Independence day (4th February) in 2009.
Speaking upon receiving the award,
Mr Gihan Fernando, Managing Director, Gamos Technology Solutions (GTS) said, “It
is a great honour in winning at the South Asian awards. We are thrilled to hear
that our hard work has paid off and our game has received deserved recognition.
Being selected a winner from amongst other competitive countries (such as
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka) clearly highlights the pioneering
effects that we undertook to create such a creative game for the masses. I am
very grateful to our dedicated team that worked on ‘Colombo Ride 2.0’ and must
give out a big thanks to Godage Book Emporium, Ceylon Biscuits Limited
(Munchee), HNB Assurance and a number of other companies who backed us with
sponsorship deals to make this game a reality.”
Receiving the award has been
timely as we look forward to launching our next version of the brand ‘Colombo
Ride’ and this time it will come in 3D. With many new features included in the
3D version, it is sure to attract the attention of many more awards to come.
The new game is scheduled to be launched on 10th October (10-10-10),
he added.
About the game - ‘Colombo Ride
2.0’ a Sinhala multiplayer mobile game, launched in 2009 revolves around a taxi
driver who must find passengers to make a living. The environment depicted in
the game is an identical map of Colombo. It enables enterprises in and around
Colombo to place their advertisements inside the game. It is an innovative way
of educating those who are unaware of the roads and locations in Colombo.
During the event, many important
dignitaries were present and shared their insights into the importance of
mobile devices and applications.
The next killer applications for
mobiles may come not from a corporate giant but a garage developer, predicted
Reshan Dewapura, COO of Sri Lanka’s ICT Agency (ICTA). ICTs will be a key
driver of economies in our region, he added.
Madanmohan Rao, Editor, ‘The
Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook’ says ‘Mobile phones across the world are
surpassing penetration of other media. Worldwide penetration of mobile phones
is estimated at 5 billion, as compared to cars (800 million), TV (1.5 billion),
credit cards (1.4 billion), PCs (850 million), and Internet (1.1 billion).
There are 400 million m-commerce users worldwide. In 2009 there were 850
million m-payment transactions.’
‘People in South Asia are hungry
for good content. Mobiles can fill in this gap’, observed Peter Bruck, Chairman
of World Summit Awards Mobile (www.wsa-mobile.org).
The need of the hour is
socionomics – economic activity with social inclusion, summed up Vishwanath
Reddy, fonder of IMImobile.
