Canada-based smartphone maker Research In Motion will provide free aptitude test application on its BlackBerry phones for students in India in partnership with content providers Ipomo and mobile operator Vodafone.

"We are looking at the way a student can utilise his time for productive work on mobile phones. Hence, we have decided to give students Aptitude Competition for Excellence (ACE) applications free so that he can utilise his time to prepare for competitive exams," Hitesh Shah, Director - Commercial Relationship India, Research In Motion told PTI.

The application and content of ACE has been designed by Ipomo for BlackBerry users, Shah said, adding that initially the content for the test will be available for select examination and grades. It will be expanded and updated gradually.

The three partners are running Aptitude Competition for Excellence (ACE 2011) program in Karnataka and will start it in Pune from January.

"We are going to organise another series of ACE in Pune from second week of January. After completing ACE test in Pune, we will provide access to application on pan-India level. We will not charge anything for the application and content," Shah said.

Today, the three partners jointly announced the first set-of ACE 2011 winners, one each from three different colleges from Bangalore and Mysore.

Around 300 Students from over 40 engineering and management colleges competed against each other using BlackBerry smartphones to answer the test, Shah said.

Under the programme, the three partners will jointly provide scholarship worth Rs 1 lakh to the winner, Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 to first runner-up and second runner-up.