A major information communications competition for young innovators across the Highlands and Islands has attracted a bumper entry.

This week the judging panel for the PICT ICT Youth Challenge 2004 have begun the difficult task of narrowing down the 120 entries already submitted to decide which teams progress the next phase of the contest.

Now in its second year, the competition, aimed at teams of between three and five people under the age of 20, is run by PICT Innovation Ltd, a partnership company established by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) to foster bright ideas with the potential to become business ventures.

PICT project manager Bryan Fraser said he was delighted by the response so far to this year's competition and by the quality of the entries.

He said: "We received 50 high quality entries for the first competition and to have more than doubled that in a year is fantastic. It is a very positive demonstration of the growing level of innovative thinking among the young people of the Highlands and Islands.

"The experts involved in selecting the best of an impressive crop of entries face a hard task."

Next month entrants whose projects show the most commercial promise will present their ideas to a panel of ICT industry experts. The best of those teams will be invited to develop their ideas with expert support and submit them again to the specialist panel next March.

In June, the final six teams will take part at the "Hothouse" level of the competition - a seven-day residential workshop during which they will be helped to develop their product to an advanced stage in an environment designed to mirror a real-life business situation.

The winning team will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to see innovative research and development in action at the world-renowned Media Lab Europe in Dublin.

HIE recently joined forces with Media Lab Europe in an exclusive strategic partnership to accelerate the commercial application of "blue-sky" research for small and medium enterprises in the Highlands and Islands.

On a visit to HIE's Inverness headquarters this week Ronan Smith, director of corporate communications at Media Lab Europe began the process of judging the entries for the PICT ICT Youth Challenge 2004.

He said: "From what I have seen the young people of the Highlands and Islands are producing some great ideas.

"We look forward to our team of researchers working with this year's participants."

The top prize in the first year of the competition went to an electronic top up card for mobile phones developed by a team from Alness Academy. The runners-up from Plockton High School also adapted mobile phone technology to create a prototype global positioning device which could aid mountain rescue.

The PICT ICT Youth Challenge 2004 is being supported by BT Scotland, in conjunction  with BT's research and technology business Btexact Technologies, Channel 4 IDEASFACTORY, Careers Scotland, Media Lab Europe, Business Lab, MFA, Omnitech, e design and HIE.