Newelo from Finland to Present Winning Project at International Award Ceremony in Abu Dhabi

Newelo Ltd is a startup company founded in April 2010. The company has its roots in media research, concepts and technologies initially developed at Nokia Research Center. The founding team were responsible for research collaborations with various global news and media companies, as well as universities, and creating an innovative software platform for mobile co-creation. After concluding the research phase the core software platform was licensed to a spin-out company. As one significant outcome of the spin-out process, Newelo was able to quickly develop its first product, Need4Feed, which was now awarded as a winner of WSA Mobile global competition. Newelo Need4Feed is a service for media houses and news agencies, allowing them to have flexible mobile workflows and deeper customer relationships. Need4Feed service can be easily integrated as a seamless extension of customers' own editorial solutions (via Web API) or it can be used directly via Web UI. Newelo's target is to become an internationally recognized solution provider in media domain and beyond, and create new global ecosystem for mobile work flows and mobile way of working.

Newelo has received support from several top level innovation programs in Finland. Preparation of a spin-out was started in early 2010 via Protomo, which is a multidisciplinary and social innovation and entrepreneur environment. It's basic idea is to provide facilities, support of the community and sparring from the experts, free of charge, to help develop new services and products for the market. In May 2010 Newelo received funding from Innovation Mill, which is a three-year program by Nokia Corporation, Technopolis and Tekes, aiming to develop growth business based on Nokia born ideas. With Innovation Mill program Newelo was able to boost its work on the business planning and product specification. During the fall Newelo got also help from Tampere All Stars, a program helping young innovative companies to acquire serious funding for growth.

The WSA Mobile winners were selected a multi-step evaluation process lead by eminent national experts, an independent selection committee or an open national contest. The Grand Jury of 20 internationally recognized experts selected the global winners from the national finalists. “The Jury members hail from all continents and they have rich and diverse professional backgrounds as leaders in the creative industries, telecommunication, advertising, media and research. The jury was highly responsive to cultural differences and they worked to award visible great m-content, no matter whether it originated in Canada or Mexico, Guatemala or Slovenia”, explains WSA Chairman Prof. Peter A. Bruck. “This way WSA ensures that the events in Abu Dhabi will present what is top on the global plane.”

All winning projects will be presented to the world at the UN-cooperated WSA-mobile Winners’ Gala, Conference and Expo in Abu Dhabi from 5 to 8 December. As the world's first event focused on excellence in mobile content and applications it will also offer a chance to the winners and to anyone involved in this field to network and to be updated on what is the state-of-the-art.

About Protomo
Protomo is a professional innovation apparatus that collects spin-off teams and gives birth to companies that attract investors and creates new job positions by combining various experts. New Factory is operated by Hermia Ltd. For more information: http://www.protomo.fi

About Innovation Mill
The Nokia Technopolis Innovation Mill initiative is the result of co-operation between Nokia, Tekes, which grants funding and Technopolis, which acts as coordinator. The program offers Finnish companies everything they need to develop a business idea from the innovation itself to a suitable operating environment and funding solutions. Ten Finnish cities are also participating in the initiative, with the objective of strengthening entrepreneurship in their local area. For more information, contact jorma.kaitera@technopolis.fi

About Tampere All Stars
Tampere All Stars is a multi-year program powered by Technopolis and funded by the Tampere Region Economic Development Agency Tredea and the EU ESR funds. Tampere All Stars helps growth companies to acquire serious funding for their growth and internationalization. There are currently more than 100 companies participating. For
more information, contact henri.rantalainen@technopolis.fi

About the WSA-mobile
Organised by the International Center for New Media (ICNM) in Salzburg, the World Summit Award Mobile is a global initiative within the framework of, and in cooperation with, the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in collaboration with UNESCO, UNIDO and the United National Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID).

The WSA-mobile is the only ICT event worldwide, which reaches the mobile community in over 160 countries and is able to promote the best mobile content and innovative applications out of this huge selection. Abu Dhabi, as the city of the award’s key partner ADSIC (Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre), will host all WSA-mobile Awards until at least 2015.