Every year at ICCM-EU it hosts a contest called TFM which stands for Technology For Missions. The contestants in this contest have the opportunity to introduce some piece of wiz-bang tech that they’d created in the past year. Then they’re all put to a vote and the favorites get prizes. It’s a chance to get some recognition in an often unappreciated and overlooked field. It also helps everyone else to be more aware of what’s out there so we can network better.

I’m not sure which will win this year, but my vote is going to KingdomIT (www.KingdomIT.org). Their entry is a small device that acts as a battery-powered wifi access point. They even have a really cool optional folding solar panel charger. When someone connects to its wifi access point they have access to whole host of material that they can then download for free.

This isn’t a new concept. The BibleBox is basically the same thing and it has been around a long time. I confess what I like so much about this is how pretty it is. As a user interface designer, such things grab my attention naturally. I believe that appealing and inviting logos and a intuitive workflow go a long way toward transcending a useful thing to something that’s desirable.