Last month, we reported that Twitter will be in Nairobi as part of their Hello World tour around the world in their quest to meet developers who use the Twitter Platform. Representatives from the microblogging platform were to visit the city at the end of the month in this quest and now we are getting more details of the event.
According to iHub’s blog, they have announced the #SmartCityNairobi challenge in partnership with Twitter which will be launched at Nairobi Tech Week which is from 27th-30th April. This is the objective of the challenge:
Developers will have the chance to participate in a hackathon to create a solution to a problem in Nairobi using Twitter’s API with the support of Twitter’s Developer Relations Team.
Just like most hackathons, there are prizes and goodies that will be given to the winners:
The best 3 ideas will receive a $2000 cash prize and continue on a 6 week programme which includes; red membership at the iHub, support and mentorship from Twitter and ihub teams and a final presentation to technology experts to further development of the idea.
At the end of the programme, the winner will receive a cash prize of $10,000, first runner up will win $7000 and second runner up will win $5000.
This is an incredible opportunity for developers in Kenya to come up with awesome projects that are tied to the Twitter ecosystem. Kenyans on Twitter are a vibrant lot and are estimated to be a million in total and this audience cannot be understated. You can check more details about this hackathon here.
