Nordic sponsors and joins first Startup Weekend event to be held in Norway and runs own Bluetooth low energy pre-event workshop and app contest before event

Nordic Semiconductor is sponsoring and participating in a major startup event called 'Startup Weekend' that has successfully been held almost 600 times in over 300 cities across 93 countries and kick-started 56,000 entrepreneurs to fast-track their ideas into viable commercial products. The 54-hour event will be hosted in Trondheim June 15-17 and Nordic is running its own pre-event workshop and app contest two weeks before on June 6 where participants will be given an introduction to Bluetooth low energy and provided with Nordic nRF8002 dev kits to develop their own apps that can be entered into the Startup Weekend and could win a 5000 NOK (about US$ 835) prize from Nordic Semiconductor Ultra low power (ULP) RF specialist Nordic Semiconductor ASA (OSE: NOD) today announces that it is sponsoring and participating in the first 'Startup Weekend' event to be held in Norway between June 15-17 in Trondheim where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs get an opportunity to fast-track their startup ideas into viable commercial products via a filtering process involving qualified potential business and technology partners. Nordic is also be running a Pre-event Workshop and app contest starting two weeks before the event from June 6 in Trondheim (see tinyurl.com/NordicWorkshop for more details and to register) where interested app developers will be given an introduction to Bluetooth low energy and provided with Nordic nRF8002 development kits to build apps based on Nordic's nRF8002 μBlue™ single chip solution. The nRF8002 is uniquely easy to design-in and requires no specialist RF technical knowledge or programming to develop Bluetooth low energy and Bluetooth Smart tag-based apps and devices (About nRF8002). Participants can then pitch their designs at the Startup Weekend that begins June 15 and in addition the team that develops the best concept and demo app that uses the nRF8002 will be awarded a cash prize of NOK 5000 (about US$ 835) by Nordic Semiconductor as part of its app contest. Startup Weekend events take business ideas and turn them into viable - and in some cases operating - startup businesses within a weekend via an intensive (but fun) judging panel-based selection and validation process that puts startup entrepreneurs in direct contact with qualified business people (such as startup investors and marketers) and technology people (e.g. app developers, designers, product managers) they may usually never have the opportunity to find or meet. To date almost 600 Startup Weekend events have been successfully held in over 300 cities across 93 countries and are said to have kick-started 56,000 entrepreneurial business plans and many startup businesses. "The application possibilities of the nRF8002 stretch way beyond proximity sensing and include location and GPS tags that could be attached to cars, bicycles, keys, clothing, pets and even children, or home automation applications triggered by motion or pressure [e.g. floor mat] sensors," comments David Edwin, a Senior Software Architect at Nordic who is organizing Nordic's participation at the event. Edwin continues: "In fact the list of potential apps is only really limited by the imagination of app developers. And just as importantly, the nRF8002 is incredibly simple to design-in with the only programming required being on the smartphone/tablet/PC app side: app developers and startups do not need to worry about investing costly engineering resources to employ the nRF8002." "For us, the nRF8002 really encapsulates what Bluetooth low energy is all about," comments Thomas Embla Bonnerud, Director of Product Management within Nordic Semiconductor. "It supports a brand new category of Bluetooth wireless accessories for smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Accessories that feature simple - but highly valuable - and previously impossible/inconvenient-to-implement end-user functionality packaged into an ultra-compact form factor delivering months to years of battery lifetime and all at a mass-market consumer price point." "One of the truly unique features of the nRF8002 is its ease-of-use for developers," adds Kjartan Furset, Strategic Application Manager at Nordic Semiconductor. "It is the first and only Bluetooth low energy solution where developers can use a graphical PC-based tool to build their application - with no firmware development - or deep Bluetooth low energy wireless technology understanding required." Furset continues: "Not only does this shorten time-to-market and lower develop costs, it also enables companies with little or no Bluetooth wireless technology experience and know-how to start creating their own applications, which is a big step forward in promoting the adoption of the technology." About the Nordic Pre-event Workshop and to register www.nordicsemi.com