Vodafone has launched its second annual Mobile Clicks competition in the UK, Netherlands and Portugal, with the operator ready to award €150,000 to a mobile start-up working on a mobile site, service or app.

The competition is designed to seeks out creativity and innovation within the industry, each entry judged in five key areas; originality, technical and operation feasibility, economic and financial viability, value to end users and quality of the management team.

"Through initiatives like Vodafone Mobile Clicks and our wider developer outreach programme, we're finding ways to help stimulate, grow and commercialise the innovation that is at the heart of the mobile ecosystem," says Vodafone direction of content services, Lee Epting.

"Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market. I’m excited to be judging another year of inspiring entries from entrants across Europe."

Round by round

It's the first year developers in Portugal have been able to enter the competition, but the set-up remains largely identical, with entries having to be submitted by August 22.

Judging will take place over three rounds, with one winning entry taken out of a shortlist of five drawn up from each nation.

The three national champions will then have to travel to the live final at the PICNIC Festival in the Netherlands on September 24, where a panel including GigaOM Network founder Om Malik and Mobile 2.0 Europe founder Rudy ad Waele will decide the winner.

Augmented reality app Layar won 2009's competition, with the app now one of the most established in its sector and able to call on partnerships with the likes of LG and Samsung.

For more details, head over to the Vodafone Mobile Clicks website.