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Several young and skilled Ugandans have ventured in to the APPs world. They are developing different Applications intended to improve life in different aspects.
On paper, these APPs are remarkably great. Unfortunately, most of them usually end at the prototype level. For many, what happens after the prototype remains an unclear tale.
But, for some years, there have been minimal deliberate plans for enhancing commercialization of these APPs in Uganda. This largely explains why many remained as prototypes.
Meanwhile, in some African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, developers are earning good returns on their innovations thanks to the presence of deliberate and long term commercialization plans spearheaded by investors and corporate organizations.
The same success in the fore-mentioned countries may be duplicated in Uganda soon after the launch of the MTN APP Challenge.
Not because, it is the first time such and incentive is kicking off in Uganda (Orange Uganda now Africell Uganda fairly invested in such incentives), but because MTN Uganda has a past superior record of ensuring that it gives its best and invests massively whenever it decides to get involved in something. I hope for exactly the same with this APP Challenge.
And considering that MTN Uganda is the telecommunication market leader, it is in the best position to spear-head such and more tech related incentives.
From MTN website, the MTN APP Challenge will be a 3 day event held at MTN Towers that will bring together local innovators to create and develop Applications for use across different Mobile devices.
“The event will start on Friday 29th May 2015 at 4:00pm and run up to Sunday 31st May. It is expected to bring together 100 brilliant minds to turn ideas into technology innovations. It is open to innovators from Uganda, both Students and Non Students,” part of the communication published by MTN notes, adding;
“The aim is to gather people from different fields and skill sets and unite them into well-working teams. We are looking for different skill sets: Developers, Designers, Marketers and Project Managers.”
While registration and entry in to this challenge is FREE, winning terms in the different categories will win up to USD 2500 and other goodies. But the cash prize is just a short term motivation.
The real deal is the possible commercialization through MTN! If well implemented, the latter has the potential of making Uganda’s first ‘million dollar’ APP developer, something that has been missing. With an APPs’ millionaire in town, younger brains will be inspired to work much more. Get the full details about the MTN APP Challenge here.
For registration, simply click here.
