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Innovation in emerging markets

Payment & ticketing

• PingPing: PingPing is a mobile micro-payments platform which allows users
   
  to purchase products and services using their cellphones. The PingPing platform is open to all mobile phone users in Belgium and also offers optional services like loyalty, e-tickets collecting and couponing. PingPing is a service offered by Mobile-For, a fully-owned subsidiary of Belgacom.

ICT applications & platforms

• Belgium-HF: the largest Belgian telemedicine experience
  
  Congestive Heart Failure affects some 100,000 to 200,000 people in Belgium with a severe impact on their quality of life. Statistics have shown that 40% of patients discharged from hospital are likely to be re-hospitalized within 6 months.
  
  Belgium-HF, which stands for Better Efficiency in Lowering Events by General practitioner's Intervention Using remote Monitoring in Heart Failure, aims to reduce this re-hospitalization rate through an innovative monitoring system for HF patients, with the expert assistance of GPs.
  
  Belgium-HF is the result of a close collaboration between the SSMG (Belgian Society of General Practitioners), the Brussels Heart Center of Clinique St-Jean, Touring, Vitalsys and Belgacom Mobile. The key to the success of this project is the pooled expertise from the fields of medicine, cardiology, people assistance, telemedicine and telecommunication technologies.
  To date, Belgium-HF has been funded by the Brussels Region, Touring and Belgacom. Belgacom, and more specifically Proximus, are managing the telecommunications part of the study: the patient's parameters are sent by SMS to the Vitalys web platform (to which neither the patient nor the doctor have access).
  
  
• Belgacom Enable!
  
  With the Enable platform, Belgacom aims to deliver the IT infrastructure and services that companies need to thrive in today's new economy. It is an open application platform that is built with 'interconnectedness' in mind. With Enable, Belgacom takes software-as-a-service one step further to where its true value lies: to deliver business ecosystems as a on-demand service. With Enable, our customers not only get their business applications delivered on-demand but, through open and intelligent digital interfaces, they automatically gain access to a rich catalogue of complementary solutions and services from their own business community.
  
  Our aim is to build an ecosystem where every customer has the opportunity to be a supplier and share his services transparently on the platform. With our 'platform-as-a-service' offer, partners can even re-brand the platform services and offer them to their own niche markets under their own livery and house style.
  
  
• Zorg TV (e-health platform)
  
  Technology in the service of health. The Onafhankelijke Ziekenfondsen (State Mutual Health Insurance Services) are launching their new pilot project Zorg TV (“Care TV”). Twenty-five patients with type 2 diabetes will be receiving information and coaching via their televisions.
  As a technical partner, Belgacom is supplying the solution for video telephony as well their platform for interactive television, Belgacom TV. This project is a perfect example of the Belgacom Group's innovation strategy and is a premiere in terms of utilizing Belgacom TV in the field of e-health.
  
  In this way, Belgacom is taking an active role as provider of integrated services for the exchange of medical data and e-medicine in collaboration with the healthcare sector.

Metering and monitoring

• Smart Metering: The aim of the 'Smart Meter' scheme is to create substantial energy savings, thanks to a real-time control of energy consumption. In October 2007, the Belgacom Group and energy supplier Nuon launched 'Smart Meter', a pilot project involving 150 households, for electricity and natural gas. The Group provides the end-to-end solution, including 'smart' measuring devices, the requisite software and the application which can be consulted over the Net, to determine the level of usage. In practice, the sensors installed in the households communicate in real time with the data processing center over the Proximus network. Customers can consult their usage levels via a secure Web page, but can also receive custom alerts by SMS or email. This allows any abnormal energy consumption or loss to be detected. Via this monitoring system, the energy supplier can optimize its production and offer the most suitable rate to its customers.

Digital media

• Softkinetic: Belgacom has formed a partnership with the Belgian firm Softkinetic, specializing in the human kinetic interface. Softkinetic's technology will be to the TV, video games and the PC what the iPhone has done to the mobile phone - i.e. providing an intuitive, immersive and transparent interface to these devices, without touch, and solely through gestures. Their unique technology allows users to navigate TV programs without the aid of a hand-held remote controller, to play video games without any joystick, to interact with marketing information using their hands, but without touching the screen, and to try out fitness programs in which their body movements are analyzed in real time.
  
  Our first application is a computer game presented during summer events to allow people to discover the power of using the human body as a form of remote control. http://www.softkinetic.be/
  
  
• Digital Pen: the solution consists in a simple automatic retrieval of hand-written information, by using the combined intelligence of a digital pen together with a patterned sheet of paper.
  The technical solution comprises a normal-looking pen with digital intelligence, connected to a centralized software platform, and a sheet of paper. The connection between the pen & the software platform is via a Bluetooth-enabled cellphone or via a cradle through a local PC.
  
  The digital pen solution allows for a consistent reduction of all costs associated with data capture. (project partner: Arco)