• The Minerva Project, an initiative of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Business, has the support of Vodafone Spain as a technology partner and main institutions in Andalusia.
• The prize-winning initiative aims to promote the development of new mobile communications that favour collaboration between businesses and universities.

Pamplona, 4th February 2008.- La Red Española de Fundaciones Universidad Empresa (University-Business Foundations Network, REDFUE) has given the University Business 2007 prize in the Information Technologies category to the Minerva project, a mobile applications innovation initiative promoted by leading Andalusian institutions, with Vodafone Spain as a technology partner.  The prize was awarded last Friday in Pamplona at the third holding of these awards, which recognise best practices of collaboration between businesses and universities in different categories.

Created in 2006 with an investment of 3 million euros, the Minerva Project is the result of the collaboration between Vodafone Spain and the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Business of the Regional Government of Andalusia, University of Seville, the Cartuja´93 Science and Technology Park, Sevilla Global S.A.M., ETICOM and the Andalusian Association of Industrial Research and Corporation. The main aim is to create an experimentation platform and a technological environment for testing based on mobile communications that help to make up the University-Business pairing.

To promote the development of new mobile communications, the Minerva Project currently involves around 80 companies and 30 Andalusian research groups, maintaining 35 R+D+I lines, using the Isla de la Cartuja as a test bench for these experiences. These lines of work are mainly set within the development of mobile applications and services based on the RedBox messaging platform, the development of services based on digital television in the mobile making use of the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld) standard and the integration of multimedia services in multiplatform mobility following the guidelines established by IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem).

“Since the creation of the Minerva Project, there have been various initiatives implemented to favour communication in universities and their relationship with businesses. Examples such as the University of Cantabria communication platform, with the sending of information through SMS, show our interest in providing the best and most cutting edge technologies and platforms to promote the development of mobility solutions useful in real life”, commented the head of the Vodafone project, Santiago Borrero.

“We are very proud that the University-Business Foundations Network has awarded us this prize and want to thank the effort of all the people involved in this project for developing the Information Society in Andalusia and rest of the country."

For further information, please contact:

Corporate Communications Department
Tel: +34 91 825 34 55
E-Mail: gabinetedeprensa@corp.vodafone.es