SEAT Pagine Gialle and the Turin Polytechnic: partnering to explore the opportunities of Mobile Technology

Winners of "Innovation Prize: Digital Mobility” announced.
The award is the result of a partnership between
the Company and the Polytechnic

Turin, 6 July 2009 – The winners of  "Innovation Prize: Digital Mobility”, the initiative promoted by SEAT Pagine Gialle, in cooperation with the Turin Polytechnic, were announced today. Participants took up the challenge of designing content, interfaces, and innovative services for mobile devices.

The Valentino Castle was the splendid backdrop of the awards ceremony, which saw the participation of Luigi Bistagnino, chairman of the Industrial Design department of the Faculty of Architecture 1 of the Turin Polytechnic, Claudio Germak, coordinator of the degree course in Graphics & Virtual Design,Luisa Piazza, Head of Public Affairs and Market Research at Seat Pagine Gialle, Rebecca Pera, Professor of theories of formal languages, and Paolo Chiaberto, Head of Seat’s Mobile Project.

 "In a social and economic context in which the use of mobile technologies and, in particular, the use of mobile Internet are becoming increasingly pervasive, SEAT Pagine Gialle intends to contribute to the spread of mobile technology as an instrument to simplify people's lives, promote access to information and services, and create new opportunities for development and growth", stated Paolo Chiaberto, Head of Mobile Project, SEAT Pagine Gialle. “This award and the cooperation with the Turin Polytechnic are part of our larger goal to encourage the creativity of young talents and promote a constructive dialogue between the business and university worlds.“

“Through project agreements with authorities and companies, design competitions, company internships, and in-house workshops for real and virtual modelling, our students can tackle the problems of the profession in a critical and hands-on way, developing the ability to interact with multidisciplinary work groups and with company organizational structures," said Paolo Tamborrini and Fabrizio Valpreda. “This methodology makes it possible to spread a new understanding between companies, which can direct their technological and production expertise toward the new ways of Systemic Design. This is a reversal of the traditional arrangements in favour of new dynamics in which the manufacturer is part of a wider operating environment, where innovation is generated by new connections and not by the product, which is in itself doomed to isolation and abandonment."

Reserved specifically to students enrolled in the third year of the Graphic and Virtual Design Course at the Faculty of Architecture 1 of the Turin Polytechnic, the "Innovation Prize: Digital Mobility” competition saw the participation of 120 students, guided by Industrial Design professors Paolo Tamborrini, Fabrizio Valpreda and Marco Bozzola, in conjunction with Rebecca Pera and with Alessandro Balbo, Andrea Di Salvo, Vassilia Gallio and Fabio Guida.

The panel of judges was made up of industry professionals and researchers from the Turin Polytechnic and representatives of SEAT Pagine Gialle. They examined more than 30 submissions and selected the most worthy projects in terms of creativity and innovation, elaboration capacity, feasibility and effectiveness in communicating the concept. Sharing top honours were:

“Youchoose – tu scegli, lui impara”
by Matteo Boracco, Davide Ragazzo and Martina Simonetti
Judges recognised this project as it is very consistent with the need to personalise mobile devices. The application focuses on the user and provides suggestions and instructions for numerous activities (travel, dining, shopping, etc), while memorising individual preferences to use again the next time. The mobile Web is designed to be a personal assistant, always available but never intrusive.

“Orientouring”
by Simone Congiu and Matteo Pont
This project brings orienteering and global positioning together with recreation and entertainment. The application is designed for large Italian cities of historic, cultural and tourist interest and can map out personalised city paths based on the needs of the user and the instructions given. The panel of judges appreciated the simplicity of the interface and the focus on the interaction between the individual and the territory. 

“All Sport”
by Jacopo Ferrario, Riccardo Tamagno and Daniele Monchiero
Designed for sports fans, this project consists of a web portal that makes it easy to look for and consult information on practicing sports, recommendations for equipment, weather forecasts for outdoor sports and events, etc. Even in a mature sector such as sports, the application stands out for its easy-to-use and highly developed design.

Special judges prize: “Orientamento all’interno degli ospedali”
by Valentina Mennuni, Erika Pirrottina and Laura Polarolo
The project is designed for women who have to take care of their family's health as well as the other aspects of their private and professional lives. The mobile phone becomes the key to accessing health services by simplifying activities such as making doctor's appointments, paying co-pays, finding a certain clinic on the hospital map, picking up results, etc. The judges assigned a special prize to the project for its originality and social value.

The first three groups will receive a cash prize while the winners of the special prize will receive three multimedia PG Pod players. All four will be rewarded with a communications course entitled "Meeting of the Minds for Effective Communication" organised by Seat Corporate University (SCU).

The Research Project

Before the design competition began, “Innovation prize: Digital Mobility” included a research phase conducted to understand the perception of mobile technology and mobile Web. Coordinated by Rebecca Pera of the Turin Polytechnic, this preliminary research surveyed a sample of potential consumers to gauge needs, motivations, expectations and reluctance in the use of mobile Internet.

The survey found how the mobile Web is seen as an extremely useful communications device, especially in terms of individual expression and creation of strong social sense, by sharing stimuli, images, sounds, impressions and memories. The perspective of the user implementing mobile Web is that of a "contemporary nomad", the central player of a new way of conceiving time, which views technology as an extension of itself, an easy and problem-free instrument for handling daily needs.

The research has also made it possible to identify and describe attitudes toward mobile Web. Three user categories stand out: “diffident" users who fear the loss of the value and warmth of real world relationships; the "explorers" who experience the mobile Web as an outlet for their creativity and are ready to personalise services and share content; and finally the “ trespassers”, who have complete control of mobile technology and make full use of its potential, while never becoming dependent on it.

The study found some reluctance in use of mobile Web, mainly related to its objective characteristics (such as performance, usability and costs) and the psycho-social nature, such as the risk of alienation from the real world, dependence on technology and the fear of being controlled or influenced. This reluctance seems fairly easy to overcome through appropriate communication of the potential and advantages of the mobile Web.

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SEAT PAGINE GIALLE GROUP
The SEAT Pagine Gialle Group is one of the main operators at world level in the sector of multimedia profiled advertising, offering “print-voice-online” directories, as well as complementary communication services such as one-to-one marketing.
SEAT Pagine Gialle has been engaged in information services, and search and communications tools for over 80 years. It is a success story based on a brand that is familiar to everyone, a sales network employing over 2,000 persons, a technology that is constantly evolving and a database that includes 15 million households and 3.8 million businesses (2008 data), and a wide range of products guaranteeing a real integrated system of communications to about 600,000 Italian customers. A total of 59 million volumes distributed to the homes and offices of Italian subscribers (2008 data), about 35 million enquiries through the directory assistance service (2008 data), and over 330 million hits on online directories (2008 data) connect people and businesses, bringing together needs and solutions and promoting economic exchanges.

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