InnovaApps+ presents its winners

InnovaApps+, the BBVA and Google productivity application competition already has its winners. In the event, held last September 22 simultaneously in Madrid, Mexico and Bogota, we had a first hand look at all the solutions that won awards in the BBVA competition.

Gustavo Vinacua, director of the BBVA Center for Innovation in Madrid, was in charge of the welcome and highlighted the value of setting up these types of competitions. As he said, it is through these that "we can make our best effort to support and reveal new and innovative productivity solutions, as we did last year, when we placed real sales activity data at the disposal of users for the first time ever". Vinacua was speaking of the Innova Challenge event, in which BBVA invited developers to build new services, applications and contents based on its card transaction data. The second edition of this competition will begin in a few days.

Marisol Menéndez, manager of Open Innovation in BBVA Spain and in charge of introducing the winning projects, highlighted that “InnovaApps+ is a wonderful opportunity to launch a challenge in the market, asking innovators to develop useful solutions using Google technology, especially for small enterprises that do not normally have as much capacity for investment in technology as large companies”.

As such, one of the main requirements of the solutions presented in the competition is that they be capable of solving problems for both SMEs and startups in Spain and Latin America, as well as of BBVA. Their utility, implementation possibilities, design, usability, visual appearance and the use of the latest technologies, both of Google and third parties, were other criteria taken into account. 

Andrés Martínez, Developer Program Manager at Google, also offered thoughts on the competition. As explained by Martínez, these types of initiatives reveal many interesting aspects within the developer community and their link to technological difficulties faced by companies in their day-to-day work. In his own words, "when a developer is given the opportunity to focus not only on technical aspects, but on marketing products and solutions, he is capable of creating innovative solutions that can respond to specific needs".

In this case, "we have travelled to the various countries and worked with developers from a very demanding approach, since they were asked to concentrate all their efforts on very specific solutions to respond to very specific problems, while searching for simplicity in the solutions". In this sense, the cloud and mobile solutions presented are highly integrated. Martínez considered this to be of great interest, because the immediate effect on SMEs was to obtain a degree in solution proposals that was inaccessible until now.

The winning applications

One of the highlights of the event was the possibility of seeing the winning applications presented by their creators in situ. The following is a brief overview.

Special BBVA Prize category

MyOffice.Glass. Asier Arranz was the first developer to present his solution, which won the first prize in the BBVA Special Prize category. Arranz connected from Ecuador to explain the workings of MyOffice Glass, an app designed for Google Glass that allows companies (in this case BBVA) control a variety of organizational aspects, such as managing meeting room reservations, checking the building cafeteria and dining room capacities, etc. “We valued the simplicity, future usefulness and integrity with Google”, said Marisol Menéndez.

BBVA Dining+. The SCA Group presented its BBVA Dining+, which won the second prize in the category, aimed at enriching user experience in the dining rooms of BBVA buildings. "The idea was to increase company value and help them meet the challenge of moving to their new financial premises, where they will have to serve meals to the 6,000 workers that will be present there", explained the Group. Its features include the ability to optimize the management of rooms and learn about their level of occupancy.

Buen Viaje. From Colombia, David Bello presented the Buen Viaje application, which won third prize with a tool that allows company employees to organize their travel to and from work. One of its advantages is its integration with Google Maps.

Organization Apps category

DoitAll. Within the Organization Apps category, Víctor Bravo, from Venezuela, personally presented Doitall, which won the first prize in this category. Doitall is a specialized cloud-based task management application. With a user-friendly format, it displays color graphics of both past and future activities. It also makes it possible to classify each project or task and organize them both chronologically in months or weeks.

Plan&Feedback Meeting Tool. This tool won the second prize in the category. Its creator, Santi Muñoz, explained how this web solution is designed to optimize how a meeting is managed, from its initial planning phase to the final one in which the minutes are written, in addition to making it possible to constantly control the time during the meeting.

Base Panel. With a direct connection from Peru, Remy Alain presented Base Panel. Based on Google Apps accounts, this web application helps companies organize their structure by providing options such as the creation of an executive and employee directory, the capacity of generating and managing meetings and of creating an organizational chart of the company, among other possibilities.

Internal Management Apps category

Prot-On. This web and mobile device application won the first prize in this category. Its creator Óscar Maire-Richard, explained how this solution allows a user to protect files (images, audio, video or documents) and apply a mechanism to encrypt them, so the user can decide and be aware at any given time who has access to them, when and for what purpose.

GentleMeet. The second prize was won by GentleMeet, a tool that combines hardware and software to optimize and improve managing meeting rooms in any company. This application is integrated with Google Calendar resources, so the user can update it in real time, in addition to always knowing if there are other reservations for that room.

La Comanda Laboral. In line with internal BBVA talent, the third prize was won by the company's employee, Luciano Domingo. His solution, La Comanda Laboral is a web application that helps small companies manage staff recruiting processes and vacancies in a company. "Our app helps people to know about your company and your company to know about people", said Domingo.

Customer and Sales Relations App category

CFDIMovil. From Mexico, Rubén Sandoval showed us how to prepare billing from a cell phone thanks to his CFDIMovil application, which won the first prize in this category. "With this solution and only a few clicks, you can move from your estimate to drawing up your bill through an automated process; very useful for entrepreneurs and small companies, because it can be done at any time from wherever the user happens to be", insisted Sanoval.

Meetouts. This is an application for both web and Android that makes it possible for any company to get in contact with their customers through open meetings and scheduled videoconferencing. Thus, an branch manager can plan a training session in which anyone can subscribe or access (from either a computer or cell phone) to carry out consultations or procedures. The Meetouts solution allows “anyone anywhere in the world to contact their bank manager at any time", explained its creators.

Qiwo. Finally, the third prize was won by Qiwo, a web application that specializes in e-commerce. Qiwo connects online sales and those made from the physical point of sale in a single cloud platform. It facilitates electronic invoicing and makes it possible to include a catalog of products in which it is possible to include both images of the articles as well as user reviews.

On closing the event, Andrés Martínez took a moment to mention that the community of Google developers, “are going to continue promoting these types of activities, such as InnovaApps+, which focus on dividing the application development process in the three ‘Ds’: Design, Development and Distribution”.

Thus, Google wants the Design to contain an element of user experience and easy, interesting graphics. In addition, "we want the design to connect with specific problems: in countries and regions like Spain and Latin America, the problems shared by the sectors with the technology make it easier for resources to be made available for developers", explained Martínez. The parts associated with Development will focus on the use of new devices, such as wearables. The last part deals with Distribution, that is, connecting developers with potential customers to take them to the next level. From this viewpoint, “InnovaApps+ has set a good example and has been a very positive experience”, concluded Martínez.

If you missed it, you have a second chance to see the entire event in the following video.