Developers, start-ups and anyone who has an idea for a great app have the opportunity to take home EUR 25 000 in this year’s Ericsson Application Awards.

The theme for 2014 is Apps for Working Life, and there will be a global competition and several regional competitions. First prize is EUR 25 000, second prize is EUR 10 000, and special recognition for innovation supporting Technology for Good. Third to 10th prize will be presented with diplomas and honorary mentions.

This is the fifth consecutive year that Ericsson is holding The Ericsson Application Awards. Students and small- and medium-sized enterprises from anywhere in the world are invited to submit Android and iOS apps.

The competition will give you and your team the opportunity to gain a foothold in the app industry, while also earning recognition and making contacts within the telecom industry.

There will be two categories for the contest – one for students, and one for small- and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 100 employees. The theme of the 2014 competition is Apps for Working Life, in support of Ericsson’s vision of a Networked Society in which – through a combination of mobility, broadband, the cloud, applications and services – anything and everything is connected.

How can apps help us all in our daily working life both now and in the future? How do we contribute to making the next generation of working life a context where people can better innovate, collaborate and balance life outside work?

“In the Networked Society, Ericsson is the leading advocate of Technology for Good and we encourage innovation to help meet sustainability challenges,” the company says. “The Technology for Good award of EEA 14 will recognise achievement in this area.”

The winner of the student category in 2013 was Portugal’s GreenSpark, which offered a solution based on energy efficiency with a truly global reach. The UK’s TboxApps was the winner in the company category. Their solution was based on usage patterns in order to get access to instant messages and quickly get help.

In all, 192 teams took part in the 2013 competition (compared with 143 in 2012) from 52 countries.