WESTPHALIA. With innovative game apps, a young company from Schwerte, Germany is bringing people from all around the world together at the same virtual table: On their smartphones and tablets, they can challenge each other to a round — in games ranging from Checkers to Ludo. b-interaktive has now been nominated “Startup of the year 2014” in South Westphalia.

In just three years, the company founder Eugen Barteska (foto) created a game world that made waves worldwide. His innovative apps connect players in real time across all boundaries and run on all popular mobile platforms.

With their applications, Barteska and his team are setting new trends in a gigantic global market: ‘The number of mobile end devices is growing rapidly, and the number of app downloads will increase to 180,000 billion downloads annually. This means that they will triple from 2012 to 2015‘, explains the entrepreneur.

For their innovation and ambition, the company has now been nominated by the regional entrepreneur magazine “Südwestfalen Manager” (“South Westphalian Manager”) as “Startup of the year 2014”. This is because the startup strengthens the town’s role as an economic hub and creates jobs. b-interaktive was founded three years ago with ten people. Today, it has a total of 30 employees working on developing mobile solutions in Schwerte and a Polish subsidiary.

b-interaktive subsequently realizes these solutions in collaboration with notable partners such as Schmidt Spiele. To mark the 100th anniversary of Ludo, the developers launched an app version of the classic board game with networking capability.

They also proved the depth of their know-how internationally in the area of mobile television: With the new app Kidsbox.tv, the team will be bringing popular cartoon series such as Benjamin the Elephant and Bibi Blocksberg to smartphones and tablet PCs for the first time ever — globally, unlimited, and at no cost at all.

The startup of the year will be selected by a jury from well-known representatives of the economy and society and presented with the awards on October 30th in the Kaiserhaus Arnsberg center.