About Samsung Apps Developer’s Contest.

Samsung is having a developers’ challenge as a way of showcasing Kenya’s talent and developing applications into the market place. This will involve inviting talented developers to develop and submit applications.

Registration

Interested developers can design mobile applications and submit into any of the 7 categories.

Categories
There would be 5 categories for entries:

• Education/Reference
• Games: Arcade/Action/ Casual/Puzzle
• Social Networking + Lifestyle
• Entertainment + Media
• Miscellaneous

Mechanics

Developers can submit their applications for any one of the 5 categories at the beginning of the contest. Not more than one application should be submitted for each category by a contestant.

1st Stage

There will be a first round selection stage, to identify applications built to specifications and standards suitable for mobile device rendition and functionality. In this round, the top 2 applications per category will be selected by a team at Samsung. There will also be a second round of selection by judges made up of professions in the fields of mobile software development and marketing. In this round the top application in each category will be selected. These applications will then move to the second and final stage of the contest.

Each of the developers picked after Stage 1 will receive handsets from Samsung.

2nd Stage

At this stage, the top five (5) applications across all categories will be developed and deployed on Samsung Servers. There will be an app launch session @ ihub and alls developers whose applications as launched will win KShs 200,000 (approx $USD 2500).

Eligibility
The Samsung Apps Developer’s Contest is open only to applications that have not been made publicly available to the market prior to the beginning of the contest. Additionally, applications that have been entered in similar contests are ineligible for the Samsung Apps Developer’s Contest, regardless whether they were winning apps. Similarly, updated versions of applications that have been entered for in a similar contest are also ineligible.

All applications submitted for the Samsung Apps Developer’s Contest will be made available to all contest judges for free, exclusively for the purposes of judging. If contestants intend to sell their application after the conclusion of the contest, they may submit a “trial” version of the application for judging. We recommend that the trial version include full functionality, but with a timed expiration, rather than including limited functionality with no expiration. Judges will evaluate the applications based on only the functionality accessible to them.

All submitted applications must run on the following mobile operating systems as listed below and must be in English language:

• Bada

Reward
Prizes will be awarded in each of the following categories:
1 stage selection (Per Category)

• Samsung Device

Overall (Per App)

• Kshs 200,000

Timeline

October 25th 2010

Contest Starts.

December 6th 2010

• Announce 5 Local developers who will develop their apps further and deploy on Samsung Apps.
• Each of the 5 Developers get handsets
• Each of the developers start working to deploy the apps via Samsung apps

January 31^st 2011

• Samsung Launch for the 5 Apps
• Each of the developers earn 200k each
• Rev Share Kicks in (for paid apps)

Last evening we had by far our largest Mobile Monday meet up at the ihub. The meet up was facilitated by Samsung who came in strong and showed us why they are a force to reckon with in the mobile industry. As always the meet up was characterised with a lot of excitement and very good participation and turnout from the mobile community. MoMoK had earlier promised on our twitter stream @mobilemondayke that we would have “goodies” for application developers, believe me we didn’t disappoint!!

We were privileged when Samsung chose Mobile Monday to launch their app developer competition and show case their platform Bada. Developers have the opportunity to win up to Kshs200,000 ($USD 2500) in prize money plus get their apps pushed on to the Samsung Bada apps store where they can continue to make money from the revenues the app generates- “With a Samsung, it’s not that hard to imagine”. Update: More information about the competition can be found here.

Verviant, a kenyan technology company was also represented at the meet up, with Mark Mwongela MD doing his best to show case some of the work that Verviant has done in developing applications on the Samsung Bada platform.

Also present was someone from Mxit.

MoMo-Kenya is growing fast, and this works to the benefit of the developer community. We want to make it bigger and better during each event.

A big thank you goes to our partners- iHub Nairobi who always manage to give us a superb venue plus team to help us arrange things, Virtual City- our premium sponsor, Pete the Barista- the coffee,beverages and food go a long way and of course the MoMo-Kenya team.

During the 10th Anniversary of Mobile Monday held in Finland, Xrystalgenius led by Alex Nyika were crowned champions in the Peer Awards. Xrystalgenius beat competitors from Uganda,Kenya (Akirachix),Brazil and Pakistan. Below are some of the pictures from the Peer Awards ceremony.

Photos from the 10th Anniversary Mobile Monday meet up in Helsinki,Finland, Sept 27-29th

During the 10th Anniversary of Mobile Monday held in Helsinki,Finland, Jari Taamisto CEO/Founder of Mobile Monday officially signed up the Kenya chapter of Mobile Monday. As one of the youngest MoMo Chapters, we are now part of the 150,000+ members in over 32 countries. The signing ceremony was done by John Wesonga (pictured here with Jari Taamisto) the lead of Mobile Monday-Kenya. The official MoMo founders pin was handed over to John Wesonga.

Show me the money!!..you’ve heard it many times, so this your chance to know how to monetize all those apps your fingers are itching to build and put in the Android market store. Join us at our next MoMoK meet up where we will be having Samsung talk about “Developers and Monetization Opportunities”. Expect a major announcement for developers during this meet up!!..you can’t afford to miss out on this..

Date: Monday, 18 Oct. 2010

Open Hours: 18:00 – 20:00
Venue: iHub
Admission: Free
Expecting Food & Drinks and Great People!

Register here mobilemondaykenya.eventbrite.com

We at MoMo Kenya are proud to announce that Virtual City, winners of the $1M Nokia Grand Venture Challenge, have agreed to sponsor Mobile Monday-Kenya for the next 6 months. Virtual City is a perfect match for MoMoK , with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship MoMoK and Virtual City see value in reaching out to developers, enthusiasts and businesses in Kenya. The MoMok team is looking forward to working with Virtual City to build a strong community and spur the next generation of mobile developers.

DeviceAnywhere, the industry leading provider of technological solutions to streamline mobile content creation, certification and customer satisfaction, and Mobile Monday, the open community of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influencers, are partnering on a new initiative to offer developers 20 hours of free access to the award-winning DeviceAnywhere Test Center™ product.

MoMo members will be able to remotely access and interact with over two thousand devices, such as the Apple iPad and Android Motorola Droid X, on over 28 different carrier networks worldwide. These devices are accessible remotely over the Internet, allowing users to interact in real time to ensure all development, porting, testing, and monitoring needs are met. The DeviceAnywhere service uses actual, physical handsets to provide developers with the same experiences as having the devices in hand. (more…)