The Safaricom Development Challenge aims at equipping entry level developers with entrepreneurial and technology skills. Over a 3 month incubation period, participants will develop apps in any of six categories: Agriculture, Health, Financial Inclusion, Education, Entertainment and Utilities. Applications developed during the incubation stage will be uploaded onto the Safaricom App-store for commercialization by the developers. The total cash prize is Kshs.3.7 million. The winning app will get Kshs.1.5 million, the first runners up gets Kshs.1 million and each of the six category winners will get Kshs.200, 000.
The Safaricom Development Challenge Competition follows another event held in September, the Safaricom Appstar Challenge. The telecomm operator has organized these events in a bid to nurture a profitable local apps industry for Kenyan developers.
“Kenya is spearheading the mobile phone revolution not just in Africa, but on the globe and it therefore, goes without saying that the future of technology in Kenya is anchored on the continuous development of sophisticated mobile apps which will address societal gaps,” said Joseph Ogutu, Director for Strategy and Innovation. “Applications will be assessed on the basis of their significance and impact, originality of their ideas, clarity of the idea, ease of implementation, and commercial appeal. These five standards are critical for any other developer who is determined to be part of this potentially lucrative industry.”
Aspiring participants have until June 28th, 2013 to submit their entries. Those who are successful will be admitted into the programme in July this year. Winners will be awarded on November 1, 2013.
