Innovations in mobile delivered health informatics, e-commerce system for micro and small enterprise (MSEs) and personal computer controlling software took the top three awards at the Third ICT Innovation Competition, organised by the ICT Centre of Excellence.

The three innovations received the financial awards on Wednesday, March 26, 2014, at the Dreamliner Hotel, in the Meskel Flower area of Kirkos District.

The process of the 2013/14 ICT innovation competition, in which more than 350 competitors took part, commenced on May 30, 2013.

Competitors were required to come up with mobile-based applications. The Competition also required that the applications contributed towards the socio economic development of the society.

First-placed, Nega Adugna, created a health connection system, called HELCON. The system is a mobile-delivered health informatics solution, intended to serve the health extension program. It is designed to boost the registered health extension program achievements. Nega won 75,000 Br.

Biruk Tezera, the second ranked winner in the general category, created an e-commerce system for MSEs.

"The more than 140,000 MSEs in Ethiopia, organised in five sectors, cannot be successful without adequate market strategy," Biruk, who won 50,000 Br, said.

Based on the marketing challenge of MSEs, Biruk proposed an electronic commerce system to comprises of customer registration, retailers' views and profiles. It also sends message to an MSE and views MSE shop locations on Google maps.

The third ranked winner in the general category, Dejen Sharew, created an I-control to control personal computers and to get information from them through a mobile application. The innovation is said to be faster than previous innovations and could be used without internet connection.

The competition was classified into a General Category and a Women Only Category. Winners of both categories were awarded by the director general of the ICT Centre of Excellence, Tewodros Mebrahtu.

The MTN Group, Earnst & Young, CHINA COMSERVICE Solutions Plc, the Educational Strategy Centre and Entrepreneurship Development Centre sponsored the Competition.

More than 90pc of the competitors in the first and the second ICT innovation competitions were from Addis Abeba. In the current competition, however, one third of the compotators were from the regional states, Fortune learnt.

In a fashion different from the two previous competitions, the winners of the competition will enter an agreement with Techno Mobile to sell and promote their mobile applications.