Deutsche Telekom has launched the Interactive TV Award 2011. It’s the third time that the German telecoms operator invites external professionals to present their ideas and concepts on the television of tomorrow. Under the motto “Television in tune with our lives”, the contributions should take the development of Entertain, the IPTV offering from Deutsche Telekom, further forward in consideration of our connected lives and work. Deutsche Telekom would like to engage in open discussion with entrants – irrespective of what prize they win and beyond the competition. For the best, there are cash prizes worth a total of €135,000.
“The new ideas and concepts will flow into the further development of Entertain,” explained the patron of the Interactive TV Award 2011, Dr. Christian P. Illek, Director of Marketing at Telekom Deutschland, in a statement. “And the competition opens the gates to collaborating with Deutsche Telekom – even beyond winning the prize. We’ve invited many of last year’s entrants to enter into discussions with us. As such, I can only wholeheartedly encourage all developers and creative minds to present their visions to us of an interactive television experience with Entertain.”
The Interactive TV Award 2011 is divided into two categories. Firstly, as a competitive developer, entrants can put forward an application in the “Developer” category that would also pass the practical test on the platform environment of our television service Entertain. The technical basis in this category is the Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework (MPF).
There’s also the “Freestyle” category. “Here, creative minds can score big time with any idea you’ve come up with that is impressive in terms of its creativity. For instance, in previous rounds we had contributions from usability designers, TV start-ups and authors. Think about the television of tomorrow – and let technology be technology!” according to the press release.
The Deutsche Telekom Interactive TV Award 2011 are open to individuals are just as well as companies or institutions. The first round for submitting ideas has been started on August 2, 2010 and will end in October 2010. For details regarding the 2011 competition as well as the Terms and Conditions of Entry on the Interactive TV Award see the dedicated website.
Deutsche Telekom’s Entertain currently has 1,000,000 subscribers in Germany, and has the potential to reach 17 million households.