Yahoo has announced the winners of the inaugural Yahoo Mobile Developer Awards, the first of several competitions showcasing the innovation and talent of Singapore students.

Students created mobile-optimized applications using Yahoo's latest mobile development platform -- Yahoo Blueprint.

A total of 24 teams from six Singapore tertiary institutes participated in the competition to build the best mobile widgets for four corporate brands -- DBS Bank, Kellogg Asia, Malaysia Airlines, and UEEEU.com.

The participating schools were Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic.

The teams started developing their mobile widgets after the YMDA kick-off meeting in September, where they received instructions and widget requirements from Yahoo and the four sponsor companies.

All teams presented their mobile widgets in front of a judging panel comprising experts from Yahoo, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, and the sponsor companies.

Submissions were judged on usability, quality, innovation, effective use of technology and relevance to the companies and their customers.

The competition is aligned with Yahoo's company-wide strategy to open up our platform to third party publishers, developers and advertisers.

Yahoo Blueprint lets developers create mobile Internet services that run across hundreds of devices.

At the YMDA award ceremony, the four winning widgets were announced, one for each of the sponsor companies.

For DBS Bank, "Simple" from Nanyang Technological University, developed a mobile widget to help customers locate branches and ATMs, and access information on bank products and credit card privileges.

For Kellogg Asia, "The Jinx" from Temasek Polytechnic created a widget that prompts people to take part in the Kellogg's "Special K Challenge."

The "Special K Challenge" is aimed at consumers to see if they can lose 2 kilograms in two weeks by replacing two meals a day with two bowls of Special K.

Their mobile widget includes calorie and BMI calculators, healthy tips, Special K recipes and a personal progress planner.

For Malaysia Airlines, "We Mobile" from Singapore Polytechnic developed a mobile widget to encourage travel with Malaysian Airlines.

Their mobile widget incorporated interesting and useful features to assist users with their travel plans.

For UEEEU.com, "Chlorophyll Studios" from Nanyang Polytechnic created a travel-related mobile widget to make customers' travel experience more convenient and enjoyable.

Their mobile widget includes a language translator, a world time indicator, destination guides, hotel/vehicle search and reservation functions, as well as a travel planning tool.

Members from the four winning widget teams each received a cash prize and will have their winning widgets showcased on the mobile widget gallery in Yahoo Go 3.0.

From the winning widgets, an overall "Best in Show" mobile widget was chosen by Yahoo and the IDA.

This year's YMDA "Best in Show" winning team is "Simple" from Nanyang Technological University.

Yahoo Blueprint is a platform for developers to create and distribute their applications to wider audiences.

It was used to power the latest mobile widgets and applications at the YMDA competition.

Apart from building widgets, developers are also able to use Yahoo Blueprint to create mobile Web sites and standalone applications.

Yahoo Blueprint is available to advertisers, publishers and developers to mobilize content and services.