The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC), an organization driving global technologies for smartphone-centric car connectivity solutions, has announced the four winners of Phase One of its MirrorLink Hackathon.

MirrorLink brings smartphone content to the dashboard. Huge icons are designed to make apps easy to use, while smart technology knows if the car is moving or stationary. MirrorLink is designed for maximum interoperability between a wide range of smartphones and cars. It is currently the only OS- and OEM-agnostic standard for car-smartphone connectivity.

They winners are:

Adventure – An interactive storytelling app that uses voice recognition to stave off boredom behind the wheel.

Drive Together – Makes driving in a convoy easier and offers a solution to the common frustrations of guests heading to a venue

Edgar – Connects drivers with their cars

RidZinGa – A quiz app that uses voice recognition “without compromising driver security”.

Selected after a three-day competition in Paris involving 21 teams and more than 90 developers, the winning teams each receive €10,000 (£7,200). All four also receive an incubation package from BeMyApp, Phase Two of the MirrorLink Hackathon, for further development. The incubation period concludes in September, when the CCC will choose one final winner. The grand prize will be an additional €10,000 and support from the CCC to officially launch the app.

“In order to have a healthy connected-car ecosystem, it’s essential consumers have the highest possible variety of driver-aware apps” said Alan Ewing, president and executive director of the CCC. “The CCC is therefore committed to inspiring the world’s developers to unleash their creativity as they conceive the next generation of connected-car content. We thank all of the participants in the MirrorLink Hackathon and look forward to the next phase.”

The CCC is dedicated to cross-industry collaboration in developing MirrorLink global standards and solutions for smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity. The organization’s 100 members represent 70 per cent of the world’s auto market, 70 per cent of the global smartphone market and a wide variety of after-market consumer electronics vendors.