Hey Business Blog readers – quick guest post here from Nadia, who’s bringing a big announcement straight from Florida! Check it out – Ed.

Hello again from BlackBerry World™ in Orlando!

Today we held a very special awards luncheon honoring the winners and finalists of the Wireless Achievement Awards. We were impressed with the many outstanding entries we received from around the world! These are mobility leaders whose BlackBerry solutions are demonstrating innovation in the Public Sector, Private Sector and driving Business Impact. We also got to find out who won the Attendee Choice award – selected by the attendees of BlackBerry World!

Without further ado, your winners:

Innovation in Private Sector

Winner for Innovation in Private Sector: Cablevision S.A. Argentina significantly decreased calls to its support center while improving productivity and service by deploying 3,500 BlackBerry® smartphones equipped with Sensebyte’s Mobile II application to its field technicians.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Innovation in Public Sector

Winner for Innovation in Public Sector: Ministerio de Desarollo Social provides more efficient humanitarian aid and social assistance by improving their field operators’ ability to better capture and share information on critical situations, including natural disasters and health and food-related crises with BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets

.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Business Impact

Winner for Business Impact: Nomura International plc saves approximately £10,000 monthly on international calling and roaming charges with the BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Attendee Choice Award

Winner for Attendee Choice Award: Venezuelan movie goers can now buy tickets and get news on upcoming features with the click of a button, thanks to Cines Unidos’s app for BlackBerry® smartphones. As well as buying tickets and obtaining receipts and confirmations, the easy-to-use app, developed in partnership with Mobile Media Networks, gives users a 40-minute show-time warning and the ability to share movie schedules with friends and book dates via BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) integration. Cines Unidos makes the app—which now has about 1.5 million users—available for download on the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, or by scanning QR codes in theater lobbies, on posters and popcorn dispensers.

Click here to read more about the 2012 Wireless Achievement Award winners and finalists, and again, congratulations to this year’s winners!

We recently announced the finalists of the Wireless Achievement Awards, but we need your help to determine the winner in the Attendee Choice category. BlackBerry World attendees vote for one of three finalists who have developed applications for their customers in order to help increase business and improve the customer experience.

Whose app do you think demonstrates the most innovative use of BlackBerry technology? Check out the demo videos below and make sure to submit your vote by TODAY, May 1st at 5:00pm ET. Winners will be announced tomorrow. Stay tuned to see if your favorite app takes home the prize!

OK! Magazine UK

[YouTube link for easy mobile viewing]

Download the app for your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry smartphone!

Cines Unidos

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

Download the app for your BlackBerry smartphone!

Banesco Banco Universal, C.A.

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

Download the app for your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry smartphone!

A few months ago, we told you about the 2012 Wireless Achievement Awards. Today we are very excited to present the finalists to you, with the winners being announced on May 2nd at the 2012 BlackBerry World™ conference.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are presented to customers who have deployed BlackBerry® smartphones and/or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets to help improve the way they do business. These high achievers are recognized for their vision, efforts, and most of all, their inspiring achievements. Through their use of a BlackBerry solution, they have helped to increase business performance, make a difference to the bottom line, and simplify life for their employees.

We received amazing entries from all around the globe, which made judging even more difficult for the Selection Committee. So without further ado, here is a brief summary of each of the finalists and their innovative solutions. As always, these results are specific to each organization:

FINALISTS FOR: INNOVATION IN PRIVATE SECTOR

Finalists in the Innovation in Private Sector category have deployed innovative BlackBerry solutions to help drive business productivity.

Cablevision S.A. Argentina: Cablevisión S.A. Argentina (Cablevisión) provides cable TV and broadband Internet service for more than 3.5 million customers in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Cablevisión has significantly decreased calls to their support center while improving productivity and service.

IA Clarington Investments Inc.: IA Clarington Investments Inc. markets a wide range of investment products, including mutual funds and segregated funds managed by leading portfolio advisors across Canada. The BlackBerry solution has helped in the company obtain a 21% increase in client interactions captured into the CRM system.

FINALISTS FOR: INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SECTOR

Finalists in the Innovation in Public Sector category use BlackBerry solutions in innovative ways in government and healthcare.

Ministerio de Desarrollo Social Argentina: To help meet its mission of providing humanitarian aid and social assistance, Argentina’s Ministerio de Desarrollo Social turned to BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. The solution allows the Minister and senior ministry officials to quickly respond to community needs, speed up decision-making while helping to improve information accuracy.

Gwent Frailty Consortium: The Gwent Frailty Consortium is a healthcare partnership between the Aneurin Bevan Health Board and five local authorities in Gwent, Wales, UK. The Gwent Frailty Consortium has increased staff productivity by an average of 50 minutes a day, saving approximately £600,000 per year while improving the patient experience.

FINALISTS FOR: BUSINESS IMPACT

Finalists in the Business Impact category have deployed a BlackBerry solution that has made a significant impact on their business.

Nomura International plc: Nomura is a leading financial services group. Mobile users based in the London, UK office represent 14% of the workforce but account for two-thirds of the telecommunications spend. Nomura has reduced their telecommunication spend using a BlackBerry solution.

Eversheds LLP: Eversheds LLP is a law firm with 46 offices across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Eversheds LLP has improved employee productivity, reinforced security best practices and reduced energy consumption, by deploying a BlackBerry solution.

FINALISTS FOR: ATTENDEE CHOICE AWARDS

This award allows BlackBerry World attendees to vote for one of three finalists who have developed applications for their customers in order to help increase business and improve customer experience.

OK! Magazine: The celebrity publication has developed an app for BlackBerry smartphone and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users to amplify content and visuals! Read a detailed description and watch the app demo. Download the app for your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry smartphone.

Cines Unidos: Cines Unidos has developed a mobile movie application that helps to enhance the movie-going experience on BlackBerry smartphones! Read a detailed description and watch the app demo. Download the app for your BlackBerry smartphone.

Banesco Banco Universal: Banesco Banco Universal has developed a mobile banking app for BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets! Read a detailed description and watch the app demo. Download the app for your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or BlackBerry smartphone.

For those attending BlackBerry World 2012, whose app do you think demonstrates the most innovative use of the BlackBerry solution? Make sure to submit your vote by Tuesday, May 1st at 5:00pm ET. Stay tuned on May 2nd to see if your choice takes home the prize! And if you aren’t going to BlackBerry World, check in here at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog for the latest news.

UPDATE: The deadline for nominations is now Friday, March 9th, 2012!

Every year fans gather to watch the society’s most famous, talented, beautiful people walk down the red carpet. It’s an honor to be nominated, they all claim. “Who are you wearing?” the paparazzi ask. “Where are the best after-parties?” the on-lookers wonder. The Oscars…nope – the Wireless Achievement Awards at the annual BlackBerry World™ conference!

That’s right, it’s Wireless Achievement Awards season once again, and the nominations are open for a short period of time. A mainstay of BlackBerry World, these coveted honors have been garnering increased attention over the past six years. But for those who aren’t familiar with the program, I thought I’d provide a bit more background.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are something we do to give our customers some well-deserved recognition for their innovation and creativity in contributing to their organization’s success.

Back in 2006, we started the program in response to the volume of interesting mobile projects we heard our customers describe. Sometimes customer success stories don’t get much attention beyond the organization that has implemented the change, so we decided we needed a way to showcase these stories – so began the first awards, six years ago.

Since then, we’ve seen hundreds of amazing stories about our customers achieving business value through their BlackBerry® deployments. Remember, this program started back in the days before the BlackBerry App World™ storefront or the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet – and, given all the evolution in technology, I can’t wait to see what this year’s nominees bring to the table.

To address the variety of submissions, we created a few different categories of awards: Innovation in Private Sector, Innovation in Public Sector, and Business Impact. To be selected as one of three finalists in a category from hundreds and hundreds of entries is really quite an honor. Additionally, to deal with the number of great nominations, we recently added a fourth category: Attendee Choice Award. For this award, people registered to attend BlackBerry World, can log in and cast their vote – the audience is in control! This category focuses on B2C applications: applications that businesses create to service their end users. These might touch on mobile marketing, customer service delivery, customer engagement, or any number of other areas. They represent high value to the organization, and are part of a new area of mobile application growth.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are all about achievement and innovation. The most compelling entries are those that are high value, high impact, and novel. The selection committee is typically comprised of executives or senior leaders from RIM®, past award winners, and industry analysts. The committee looks for entries that demonstrate how BlackBerry solutions have helped organizations achieve their business goals, whether the goal has improved customer satisfaction, cost savings, increased efficiency or helped achieve higher sales.

So, if you think you’ve got what it takes (and I know you do), why not submit a nomination? Just visit the Wireless Achievement Awards page on the BlackBerry World website or dive straight in to the web entry form. Follow the step-by-step instructions to submit your information – additionally, you can attach supporting material (we love screenshots!). And for the perfectionists out there, the form allows you to save your entry and come back later to finish it off. Just remember, the deadline – March 5th, 2012 March 9th, 2012 – is coming up fast, so submit your nomination now!

At Wednesday’s BlackBerry World 2011 General Session keynote, the winners of the 2011 Wireless Achievement Awards were announced. This year we have some outstanding achievers. These are mobility leaders whose BlackBerry solutions are demonstrating innovation in the Public Sector, Private Sector and driving Business Impact.

Innovation in Private Sector: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

BlackBerry World 2011 Wireless Achievement Award Winner for Innovation in Private Sector: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center patient-centric care improves with better communication, increased collaboration and efficient workflow.

Innovation in Public Sector: Chatham Kent Police Service

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

BlackBerry World 2011 Wireless Achievement Award Winner for Innovation in Public Sector: Chatham Kent police service pioneers two-factor authentication for secure, mobile policing solutions.

Business Impact: Chiesi Farmaceutici

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

BlackBerry World 2011 Wireless Achievement Award Winner for Business Impact: Chiesi Farmaceutici clinical drug trial utilizes BlackBerry smartphones to replace paper system with significant cost savings and high success rate.

Attendee Choice Award: Delta

The Delta mobile app has been designed to provide Delta air line travelers with a faster, more informed travel experience. Designed to make flying with Delta Air Lines even more convenient, travelers can see their SkyMiles balance and status, look-up flight schedules, complete mobile check-in, save and use e-boarding passes, track flights and view upcoming trips. With the BlackBerry® Push Service, customers get near real-time notifications, such as flight schedule and gate changes along with the capability to re-book a cancelled or delayed flight – all from within the app. The app also cleverly uses the BlackBerry smartphone camera to setup a parking reminder to help when returning from a trip. The Delta app was built in partnership with Kony Solutions.

Click here to read more about the 2011 Wireless Achievement Award finalists, and again, congratulations to this year’s winners!

A few months ago, we let you know about the Wireless Achievement Awards (formerly known as the Wireless Leadership Awards). Today we are very excited to present the finalists to you, with the Winners being announced next week at the 2011 BlackBerry® World™ conference.

The Wireless Achievement Awards are presented to customers who are doing business in new and better ways with game-changing BlackBerry® deployments. These high achievers are in a category of their own for their vision, efforts and most of all, their awe-inspiring achievements. They partner with app development partners to mobilize corporate systems that were once only available by sitting at a desk. They increase performance, make a difference to the bottom line and simplify life for their employees.

So with no further ado – for your reading enjoyment, here is a brief summary of information and results provided by each finalist. As always, these results are specific to each organization:

FINALISTS FOR: ATTENDEE CHOICE AWARDS

New this year at BlackBerry World, as part of the Wireless Achievement Awards, is the Attendee Choice Award. This award lets BlackBerry World attendees vote for one of the three finalists who have developed applications for their customers in order to help increase business. Whose app do you think demonstrates the most innovative use of BlackBerry solution technology? Check out the descriptions below and make sure to submit your vote by Tuesday, May 3rd at 5:00pm ET.

CIBC – CIBC created the CIBC Home Advisor™ app for any house hunter in Canada looking to make their home purchase easier. With a few clicks, this app is designed to allow users to access mortgage advice from CIBC wherever they are, whether they’re exploring neighborhoods, visiting properties or simply doing research. Home buyers can track and compare properties visited by taking and storing photos and completing a homebuyer’s checklist for each home. The app is also designed to let buyers view neighbourhood maps, average property valuations and trends. To make the house hunting process even easier, four different calculators are built-in to help determine what is affordable, rent vs. buy, the equity in a current home, or mortgage payment options. Additionaly, buyers can get free advice from a CIBC Mortgage Advisor and request a pre-approval financing certificate right from the app.

Delta – The Delta mobile app has been designed to provide Delta air line travelers with a faster, more informed travel experience. Designed to make flying with Delta Air Lines even more convenient, travelers can see their SkyMiles balance and status, look-up flight schedules, complete mobile check-in, save and use e-boarding passes, track flights and view upcoming trips. With BlackBerry® Push Service customers get near real-time notifications, such as flight schedule and gate changes along with the capability to re-book a cancelled or delayed flight – all from within the app. The app also cleverly uses the BlackBerry camera to setup a parking reminder to help when returning from a trip. The Delta app was built in partnership with Kony Solutions.

Sherwin-Williams – The ColorSnap® app by Sherwin-Williams is designed to let users capture real world colors and match them to Sherwin-Williams paint colors. The app makes it easy for users to take color inspiration from a photo on their BlackBerry photo library or one that has just been snapped and match it to one of 1500 Sherwin-Williams paint colors, create a custom palette or ask Sherwin-Williams for coordinating colors. Additionally, users can fine tune colors using lightness and saturation features, and then share palette libraries with friends and family for input. Lastly, the app has a built in find feature, designed to allow users to input their zip code to find a local Sherwin-Williams store nearby.

FINALISTS FOR: BUSINESS IMPACT

Finalists for the Business Impact have deployed a wireless solution that has made a significant impact on their business.

Carmedic – Carmedic is an auto body paintless dent removal company with 86 technician partners across 25 states. Each Carmedic technician uses a BlackBerry® smartphone, a digital pen and pre-printed, digital forms from ExpeData® to fill out invoices. The handwritten information is recorded on a chip in the digital pen and automatically transferred via Bluetooth® to the BlackBerry smartphone and into the enterprise accounting system.

Chiesi Farmaceutici – Chiesi Farmaceutici S.P.A. is an Italian pharmaceutical company. To demonstrate the efficacy of a specific drug for the treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Chiesi began a clinical trial involving 2,000 patients in 19 countries. Working with TechMobile, a BlackBerry® Alliance Program member, and other partners, Chiesi developed a BlackBerry application that is designed to let patients securely submit a daily questionnaire about their symptoms. Data is collected automatically by a central system. Chiesi chose the BlackBerry solution because of its security features to help met pharmaceutical legislation. The trial is achieving a 94% patient compliance rate and saved Chiesi €5 million versus the traditional paper process.

USG People – USG People provides general and specialized staffing solutions, human resources, education and training in several countries across Europe. To improve the efficiency of its mobile sales force, USG People Spain tasked NTS, a member of the BlackBerry Alliance Program, with developing a Customer Relationship Management application for BlackBerry smartphones. 235 USG People sales reps now use it to manage calendars, access customer information and track sales objectives. The application has helped each sales rep save over two hours per week, which has added up to 11,000 additional sales call annually and a net increase in annual revenue of €3 million.

FINALISTS FOR: INNOVATION IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR

Finalists for the Innovation in the Public Sector use wireless solutions in innovative ways in healthcare, public safety and government.

Emirates Group – Comprising Emirates Airline, Dnata and subsidiary companies, the Emirates Group is a major player in the global aviation, travel, tourism and leisure industries. Emirates Group Information Technology (EG-IT) provides the IT business technology solutions and systems required to support the group’s operations. Using social networking tools, employees and in-house developers work together to identify usage needs and develop suitable mobile applications. Users download BlackBerry® applications from the group’s private app portal. Applications range from one that enables finance managers to approve purchase orders, to those used for checking flight capacity and booking tickets. By mobilizing business information, these solutions help to enable staff to operate more effectively and efficiently. The group now has a mobile application ecosystem that has been adapted to the support the needs of its business.

LILA Asturias – LILA Asturias is a Spanish laboratory that analyzes dairy production. It works with dairy farmers from all over Asturias region, providing daily microbiological, chemical and physical analysis. LILA developed a BlackBerry solution designed to deliver lab results quickly and meet regulatory standards. They gave 1,800 dairy farmers BlackBerry smartphones so they can receive the latest lab reports directly, within 24 hours after the completion of the tests. This has resulted in higher quality and increased revenues. Preliminary studies show that dairy farmers have been able to increase yields by up to 50% thanks to the BlackBerry solution.

UPMC -UPMC is a global health enterprise headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with approximately 50,000 employees and 400 outpatient sites. UPMC deployed BlackBerry smartphones with SmartRoom technology to nurses, transporters and clinicians at UPMC Mercy, one of its 20 hospitals. The SmartRoom pulls data from the electronic medical record (EMR) to display patient room assignments, tasks and vital patient information on screens at the nurses’ station and now on the BlackBerry smartphone. In the hospital unit where the pilot took place, health care providers have improved call-response time (from 73.1 to 83.8 on the Press Ganey Score), reduced time looking for people or information (from 6,205 to 2,077 steps in one shift), reduced the noise levels in and around patient rooms and increased the number of trips transporters make each shift (by an average of 10%).

FINALISTS FOR: INNOVATION IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Finalists for the Innovation in the Private Sector have deployed new, innovative wireless solutions to drive business productivity.

Chatham-Kent Police Service – Chatham-Kent Police Service (CKPS) is responsible for an area spanning 2,400 sq km – one of the largest municipalities in southwestern Ontario, Canada. They use a two-factor authentication system, with a BlackBerry® Smart Card Reader and SafeNet® Smart Card technology. The solution passed extensive threat and risk assessments before receiving approval from the Ontario Police Technology Information Cooperative (OPTIC). Confident they had a secure solution, BlackBerry smartphones were rolled out with a suite of applications including Niche-RMS (access to criminal record and transportation databases), MPATracking (dispatch monitoring of officers’ locations), MPABeatBlog (daily briefing tool), and MPADictation (for officers to capture notes and data while on site).

Mississippi Department of Transportation – Mississippi Department of Transportation’s (MDOT) Facility and Records Management (FRM) Division must maintain and repair building mechanical systems without disrupting daily operations. MDOT has deployed TRANE Alert Mobile System (TAMS), an application to alert maintenance personnel to mechanical or equipment failures. Other applications include MDOT Room Temperatures to monitor/ control room temperatures, Parking Decals – vehicle information, MDOT Directory Search – employee contacts, MDOT Assets to track valuable inventory and MS Traffic Mobile for streaming traffic cameras and alerts. Utilizing their BlackBerry solution TAMS, MDOT has improved safety for employees, and saved approximately $1.53 million annually in salaries and utility costs.

University Hospitals Birmingham – University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is a leading university teaching hospital in the United Kingdom. Working with Webalo, a member of the BlackBerry Alliance Program, UHB quickly connected BlackBerry smartphones to put enterprise data in the hands of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and administrators. A series of apps were deployed including a Neurological On-Call Referral System (NORSE), a Pharmacy On-Call System (POCS), Accident & Emergency Live Reports for Administrators and an IT Reporting & Analytics app. Today, hundreds of UHB’s mobile employees use the BlackBerry solution, and many more are expected to benefit as usage expands.

For those of you going to BlackBerry World 2011, be sure to check out the General Session on
Wednesday May 4th to find out who the lucky winners are – and don’t forget to submit your vote for the Attendee Choice Awards before May 3rd at 5pm ET.

And if you aren’t going to BlackBerry World, stay tuned for the latest news!