Is your small biz the best at mobile boffinry? Prove it

Top, er, prizes up for grabs in new DTI contest

Are you working for the UK's most innovative mobile company? Would you like the legal right to say so? Then you're in luck, as that's the prize in a new government competition.

The Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) is running the compo, which is open to small and medium enterprises (less than 250 people). The winner doesn't just get bragging rights of course: there's a logo too, and talk of a trophy of some sort, but registrations close on 14 December, so best start working on that 150-word description of your product or service now.

You get another 250 words to explain what's so innovative about it, but anything requiring greater explanation probably isn’t innovative enough for the short-attention-span Web-2.0 generation. You'll also have to describe what challenges you've faced, and the global potential of your innovation, thankfully without word caps on either.

Twenty entrants who manage that then get selected to attend a special pre-Mobile-World-Congress event in London, where they could meet as many as 30 journalists (last year including reps from the BBC and The Times). As if that weren't exciting enough, they get free media training (buy journalists drinks, don't trust their smiles) and the six who present the best get to repeat the process in Barcelona in February.

That's assuming the entrants are planning to be in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the annual industry shindig. The DTI will stump up for visitor passes to the event, but travel and accommodation is down to the innovators to cough up for, so if you're not planning to go then you can't even enter the competition.

The six who do fulfil the criteria get to call themselves "UK’s Most Innovative Mobile Company – Finalist", and "receive additional media exposure" - the details of which are not specified.

After repeating their presentations to the judges (who haven't yet been named) one lucky company will be crowned "UK’s Most Innovative Mobile Company" and receive a trophy of some sort. Not only that, but they get a whole day to talk to brand-development specialists TheAlloy about how to represent themselves, when they can then do at a government event on 3 August.

So if you've not already dashed over to file your entry then do so now, you've nothing to lose and that shiny new logo could be yours if you win. ®