Israel’s iOnRoad wins top new mobile app prize

As far as international telecom giant Qualcomm is concerned, Israeli-created road safety app iOnRoad is the best new mobile app in the world. That’s why Qualcomm awarded iOnRoad a total of $250,000 in funding and assistance, as the winner of its third annual QPrize international venture investment competition.

The app reached the QPrize finals after winning the Israel regional contest last year, for which its makers were awarded $100,000 in venture capital funding from Qualcomm. The new iOnRoad win gets the company an additional $150,000 in funding, after beating out top apps from North America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Brazil, China, Korea, and India.

iOnRoad is a road safety app that turns smartphones into a road danger warning device. The app (iPhone and Android) makes use of a phone’s cameras, sensors, GPS chip, etc. to determine if a driver is in imminent danger — if they are driving too close to the driver ahead of them, if they are going to be able to brake in time, etc. As the vehicle approaches danger, an audio-visual warning pops up to alert the driver to a possible collision, allowing them to brake in time.

iOnPhone also tells you how fast you’re going, and lets you know when you’re exceeding the speed limit. The app also gives you a “personal web dashboard,” with which you can play music, make a phone call, or check a map, with just a single touch of your fingertip

iOnRoad sounds a little like another well-known Israeli road safety warning system — MobileEye, which also indicates if drivers are in danger. In a recent interview with Times of Israel, iOnRoad CEO Alon Atzmin said that there were significant differences between his app and MobileEye, “which is a hardware system and needs to be installed in a car by a professional. But anyone can download our app and begin using it immediately, so it’s much more accessible.”

“We had an enormous amount of interest in this year’s QPrize competition and it’s clear that entrepreneurs have fully embraced the mobile platform and are on their way to building some great companies,” said Nagraj Kashyap, senior vice president of Qualcomm Ventures. “We congratulate iOnRoad on their exceptional achievement and look forward to helping them expand their business opportunities and market presence.”