Core77

In October we launched the Fast Track to the Mobile App Design Challenge, an international competition for the Windows Phone to design new apps to help people get their work done. We received amazing and inspiring submissions from to-do lists to contact managers to shutting notifications off so you can focus on actually working. After hours of review and deliberation by our fantastic judges Scott Wilson (MINIMAL), Jill Nussbaum (Barbarian Group), René Schulte (Schulte Software Development), Mike Kruzeniski (Microsoft), Brandon Watson (Microsoft) and Eric Ludlum (Core77), we are proud to announce our five winners and 95 finalists!

All winners and finalists will receive a 1-year subscription to the App Hub development community and the first 25 finalists who launch their apps in the Windows Marketplace will become our Notable Finalists, scoring a Windows Phone. Winners not only receive a subscription to App Hub, Windows Phone and XBox 360 with Kinect, but they also get an app development deal to fast track their apps to the Windows Marketplace. Keep checking back over the next couple months as we start Phase 2 of the competition: following the winners along the development path from design to launching their apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Without further ado...

WINNERS

Bridge - an integrated mobile tool for small team collaboration across time zones.

App Designer:
Ying Wei, Toh
Seoul, South Korea (originally Ipoh, Malaysia)
Portfolio: www.coroflot.com/yingwei
LinkedIn: kr.linkedin.com/in/yingwei
Credits: Dennis Park, Visual Designer

Ying Wei is a passionate User Experience designer specializing in user research, user interface and interaction design. She received her Bachelor's degree in Interface Design from Multimedia University, Malaysia in 2007 and her Master's degree in Interaction Design from Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea in Feb 2011. She was an interaction designer at Autodesk in Shanghai where her responsibility is to assist the development of the global products and workflows such as AutoCAD Map3D and Digital Cities projects in a global team spreading over US, Canada, and China.

Currently, she is working as an information architect in Seoul.
Ying Wei loves traveling and exploring different countries and cultures.

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Blackbelt - a level-up based business app aimed at improving company productivity and employee self awareness through objectives, incentives and competition.

App Designer:
Mark William Salerno
Milan, Italy (originally Melbourne, Australia)
Industrial Design: www.designsalerno.net
Graphic Design: www.marksmanstudios.com

New freelancer Mark William Salerno set out to become a car designer yet could not deny his passion for mixed design disciplines in Arts, Graphic, Multimedia and Industrial Design.

Earning 'The Man' nickname at Design Innovation Milano, he became an ID project leader and international tutor. Moving to the design capital in 2006, he completed a master course with Alfa Romeo at the famous Scuola Politecnica di Design. An upbringing in Australia excelled his natural skills with studies at Swinburne TAFE and Monash University.

Utlizing all facets of art and design, he continues to develop a fine 'explore-filter-evolve' cycle of creative labor.

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Social Mints - easily track and measure what people are saying about a company, brand or new product across the social media landscape.

App Designer:
Pratik Kothari
Virginia Beach, VA
www.gotechark.com
www.moodswinglife.com

Pratik Kothari works as Director of IT for reQuire, LLC and also runs his own company Techark Consultancy. Kothari holds a Bachelor's and Master's in Computer Science and is passionate about solving challenging problems.

Microsoft has recognized Kothari as a Developer Hero for his extremely popular Windows Phone apps: Mood Swing, Dress Pal, Smart Goals, RedMinder and ...honey, I got it! All his apps are very practical and based out of necessities in one's daily life. An AppHub Spotlight on Kothari's apps is available here.

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Rhythmatic - an easy to use and powerful business cash-flow management mobile app.

App Designer:
Geof Harries
Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada
http://subvert.ca

Geof Harries is a designer who is most commonly hired to research, plan and conceive user interfaces for enterprise software products. When not working on client projects, he and the team at Subvert develop their own commercial software products built on the Microsoft technology platform. Outside of work, Geof loves to spend time with his wife and three children. He occasionally can be found in the Yukon wilderness atop his mountain bike, cross-country skis or snowboard.

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car-pal+ - helps road warriors track fuel efficiency, find the nearest gas station, and monitor road alerts and maintenance history.

App Designer:
Alan Asher
Denver, Colorado
www.linkedin.com/in/alanasher
Credits: Chris Bartlett

Alan Asher is an aspiring 28-year-old entrepreneur and digital-media designer whose passion is interface design and user experience. He enjoys designing and consulting from start-up ventures to enterprise-level applications.

With six years of business and technology experience in the financial-services industry, Alan looks forward to meeting new people, learning from new opportunities, and engaging in new challenges. His other interests include finance, technological trends and photography.

Alan is also an active member of his local community, dedicating personal time to programs like Junior Achievement to cultivate young business leaders of the future.

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We can't reveal too much about these apps before they're launched, but here are the finalists we'll also be keeping an eye on:

NOTABLE FINALISTS
Notable finalists are the first 25 finalist apps that are developed and released into the Windows Phone Marketplace.

1. Travel Trove by Peggy Fung, USA & Arcadius Kazimierski
2. Project Mosaic by Matt Cavanagh, South Africa
3. 1tap2send by Valentin Keleti, Romania & Oana Csertus
4. YouTube Download by Domenico Rosito, Italy
5. Meeting Planner by Sébastien Lachance, Canada
6. Get Reimbursed by Pratik Kothari, USA
7. MetroDiff by Leo Cutugno, Argentina & Bobby Harrell
8. mHealth by Cheng Lei Lim, Singapore
9. SMS Scheduler by Muhammad Naveed, Pakistan
10. TASKMASTER by Arjun Ganesan, India
11. SlickFlow by Kenneth Bugeja, Malta
12. Days Until by Monika Yadav, India
13. Draw & Tell by Wei Liang Lin, Singapore
14. Take A Break by Aadhar Bhalinge, India

FINALISTS

News Float by Martin Jordan, Germany
Tabula by Jordan Lang, USA
Phlock by Luke Farinella, USA
EXPENZ by Nick Harewood, UK
Eye Candy by Jonathan Turner, USA
Twee by Mark Salerno, Italy
Footnote by Ivo Weevers, Netherlands
DREAM COUNTDOWN by Sherwood Forlee, USA
Tasks Space by Maria Smolkov, Israel
FUNNEL/ Task Management App by Bastien Thuillot , France
Sous. by Jaycob Cratchley, Australia
Foxtrot by Krishna Kumar, India
InspirEngine by Abhilaksh Lalwani, UK
Clipon! by Pragam Rathore, India
Packed by Hei-Lun Lee, USA
ACENTO by Julio Gomez, Colombia
CHANGE by Maria Zenkevich, Belarus
Switchboard by Jeremy Taylor, Australia
art department : black book /nyc by Christine Stocking, USA
Endeavour - Effectively complete relevant tasks. by Jip Eilbracht, Netherlands
Quick Read Recipes by Ed Lewis, USA
Time Tracking by Kathryn Mcelroy, USA
Go Dark by David Bourke, UK
FLOPPY by Jamaal Pascall, USA
TODOHOY by Carlos Barreto, Paraguay
Rotaraction - "What you can do to get active and give back to your community" by Simon-Paul Ridgeway , South Africa
Mathflow by Fabian Tamp, Australia
Vlock by Arjun Shetty, India
Time alert by Robert Figura, Australia
Change by Regimantas Vegele, Denmark
Collab by Jose Virgilio Pocholo De Villa, Singapore
color by Adam Wrigley, USA
My Projects by Eric Quezado, Brazil
health plan maker by Shiho Ishizuka, Japan
Elephis by Derek Lakin, UK
Taskit Task Manager by Aaron Coppedge-Thomas, USA
WeatherMe by Jeffrey Bergier, USA
MyStudies by Daniel Mahon, UK
Chinese Tones by Declan Talbert, UK
Shout! by Casey Maupin, USA
Scarlet by Ramda Yanurzha , USA
WinURlyf ! by Vineeta Rath , India
The Spot by Michael Okyere, Netherlands
ORGANICE by Chaitrasri Rao, USA
The Coordinator by Adriel Mingo, USA
EZ Bib Vision by Jose Morales, USA
Knom by Nicholas Paredes, USA
Link Us by Micah Iverson, USA
Microsoft Answers - Windows Phone by Jose Morales, USA
workspace by Suganth Chellamuthu, India
Chron@Task by Antti Lindström, Finland
Switch-Shift opt.(Business Shift or Business Switch) by Anthony Jones, USA
Warm-up by Andy Stump, Germany
Field Connect by Pratik Kothari, USA
Doodle - Scheduling Made Easy! by Pratik Kothari, USA
Journey Hub by Narudom Techaval, Thailand
FollowUpon by Nikolas Beaudin, Canada
Yoga @ Work by Monika Yadav, India
School Calendar/Timetable app by Stuart Lodge, UK
SchoolFlow by Stuart Lodge, UK
Work Smarter by Colin Eberhardt , UK
Smart Grid X by Usman ur Rehman Ahmed, Pakistan
Lunch Meet by Timothy Wright, USA
TGIF by Gilbert Chan, Canada
Automatic Shift by Roscoe Warner, USA
PorFavor by Mike Padilla, USA
Password Saver by Noyman Avila , USA
Neurona by Alejandro Limon Garcia, Mexico
SQL Connector by Bobby Harrell, USA
Background Tweeter by Robert Whitfield, UK
Paradigm App by Samuel Ho, Canada
defrag by Paolo Kurtis Tan, Phillipines
Overalt by Anthony Gabas, Canada
teamplay by Sebastian Reichl, Austria
Take A Break by Aadhar Bhalinge, India
Now Trending by Monika Yadav, India
Natural Information Discovery by Steven Hoober, USA
readle by Srikar Doddi, USA

All finalists are eligible to become Notable Finalists (and win a Windows Phone) by being one of the first 25 who launch their app in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Core77 will feature a gallery of all the Fast Track Apps that have been published by mid-February at http://fasttrackapp.core77.com.