2012 was a phenomenal year for Microsoft. We released many new products, and most importantly we re-imagined Windows – the most popular operating system ever. We also released Windows Phone 8 which is expected by analysts to have the highest growth rate in the coming four years.

With the start of the New Year, one of our resolutions is to keep our commitment towards the developer community in Africa. And with the new era of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 stores, we decided to revive Mobile Monday to show Kenyan developers how to build the best apps for the fastest growing app store which is Windows Phone 8.

However, the story doesn’t end here because Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps have a lot of similarities and a lot of shared code base. Therefore, we will give you a glimpse into how easy it is to build Windows 8 apps too. We will also have a cool demo of Kinect,  which has changed the way people play games and experience entertainment

Join us on Monday, 21st of January from 6 – 8 pm at the iHub in a journey of development for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8, along with announcements for startups and students plus a quick look at Kinect.

Register now - the seats are limited.

See you on Monday January 21st!  You can also keep in touch with us through the following channels;

Twitter: @microsoftafrica and @AfricaApps

Facebook Groups
Microsoft DPE Nigeria
Microsoft Developer Evangelism – East and Southern Africa
AfricaApps

Blog: AfricaApps Blog

On the 21st of November, we will be having Mbugua Njihia talking about “How to sell your app”. Check out his presentation at Demo Pit and get some few pointers:

So here below are the top 12 submitted apps that will have the chance to pitch in front of the professional jury and win a nomination to the Mobile Premier Awards 2012, which are held during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona:

CrowdPesa.com

Hewa

Empathy

3GINNOVATORS

NikoHapa Mobile App

iRelief

MEDKenya

WordPower

MsemaKweli

M-Shop

Symptom Tracker

Personal Nutritionist

Congratulations to all the App Artists that got selected!

The jury that will evaluate the apps on stage include:

1. Leonard D’cunha- Manager, Portfolio, Planning & Insights – East & Southern, Nokia.
2. Dr. Joseph Sevilla- Deputy Vice Chancellor (Quality and Assurance) Strathmore University
3. Maria langat- Operations at Akirachix and Software Engineer at Bridge International Academies
4. Alex Anderson- Lead Developer FrontlineSMS and also works on medical education website podmedics.com
5. Idd Salim- IT Expert.Coder at Symbiotic media and Xema labs. Blogger at IddSalim.

Venue Information:

The location will be at the *iHub_Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community at the 4th floor of the Bishop Magua Centre on Ngong Rd., directly opposite the Uchumi Hyper.

Date: 10th of September 2011

AGENDA

10.00am: Welcome and introductions

10.15am: First Act – Leading Platforms present

10.30am: 2nd Act – 10 Apps present with jury feedback
11.30am: Thanks and jury selection for Runnerup plus the winner.
11.40am: Networking and Winner announcement.

12.00am: Close

The m:Lab’s training on mobile applications development and related technologies is delivered through a short course program. The training program is designed to offer individuals who already have a software development background an opportunity to hone their skills with a mobile technologies focus. It is a program targeted at the thousands of graduates of ICT related degree programs from East African universities.

The training is undertaken at m:lab East Africa’s new facilities located at Bishop Magua Centre on Ngong road – one floor beneath iHub. The training facility has capacity for 25 students equipped with computers and high speed Internet connections. The Lab’s testing facility equipped with a wide range of mobile devices from various manufacturers is also accessible to the students.

Technologies covered in the training include USSD, android, J2me, php, mysql, LWUIT, Mobile Web , IVR, User Experience Design, SMS, Systems Design. Students also get to cover training on business for mobile. This is meant to improve their entrepreneurial skills and is complemented by short business incubation period before they graduate. The Lab expects that although some students may complete the course and go into relevant employment positions others will go into entrepreneurship with mobile innovations.

The current program is a full time daily course on all week days. The students get to interact with other developers and domain experts from different development sectors through events organized by m:lab East Africa and the iHub community.

Eligibility criteria

1. Must have completed a degree program (evidence = final year transcript or degree certificate)
2. Must be available on a full time basis from 9.30am to 3.30pm for 4 months (between September 5th 2011 and December 31st 2011 for second wave of students)

Number of Students

A new lot of 25 students is expected to join the training in September 2011.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria
The selection panel for submitted applications will consider the following criteria

1. Familiarity with technology, platforms and programming languages
2. Accomplishments
3. Demonstrated interest and motivation
4. Academic background and performance

Here comes AppCircus in Kenya.. iHub Nairobi will host the travelling showcase of the most creative and innovative apps on the 10th of September.

10 developers can pitch in front of an international jury, formed by industry experts.The winner of the AppCircus will get an opportunity to be nominated for the Mobile Premier Awards 2012, which are held during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The deadline to participate is the 22th of August!

Here are the rules for participation:

• Submissions and presentations to the AppCircus are FREE and open to any developer, Startup or company.
• Applicants must send one representative person to present the app live on stage.
• Apps are submitted through the appcircus.com platform.
• Registration and membership on appcircus are FREE!
• appcircus.com members need to add the app to their profile before applying to an AppCircus.
• Each App can only present in one AppCircus, except if it receives a Runnerup Waiver.
• One app in each AppCircus will be nominated for the pool of apps from which the 20 finalists for the Mobile Premier Awards 2012 will be selected.
• The app with most votes after the nomination winner, will receive a “Runnerup Waiver”, which allows it to apply again to be selected at another AppCircus.

The project aims at rewarding ventures using technology for development purposes. The African Social Venture Prize will reward three projects or enterprises addressing needs of the ‘bottom of pyramid’ market in Africa through technology.

The digital projects range from e-health and mobile banking to digital and mobile applications for education or agriculture. They therefore represent huge opportunities for social development.

Prizes

The 3 winners will receive a financial grant (25K€, 15K€, 10K€) and they will also benefit from a 6-month mentoring by management experts.

How do I enter?

Any entrepreneur or any legal entity that has been in existence for fewer than two years at the time of the contest may participate at no cost and with no restriction on nationality.

Submitted projects must be designed to be deployed in at least one of the African countries in which Orange operates and must offer technology in an innovative way to help improve the living conditions of the populations.

The African countries of Orange’s footprint are Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Botswana.

Applications are accepted from June 8 to September 15, 2011 at www.starafrica.com.

You hear a lot of m-this and m-that, and sometime we wonder can we get another name for these mobile apps.  Mobile apps are great and it is encouraging that Kenya is among the top apps producing nation in the world.. can you believe it. Yeah we are that good. The only question always in my mind is how many of these apps are geared towards making money?

In the last few months Mobile Monday management decided to allow the guys with local apps to come forward and showcase their fine creations. True to the word many developers came forward and they did not disappoint.  Excellent apps with downloads running into thousands and hundred of thousands. The only problem is people don’t eat downloads. That might come out badly but we came to realize that, it might be true when a guy whom i can’t even remember his name came in and presented his tours and travel app on the ovistore and blow everyone off with the amount of money he is making from the people downloading his app. The different between this unknown guy’s downloads and the other more popular downloads is that he is charging for every download made. I would rather have only 100 dowanloads with people paying Ksh.10 rather than have 100k dowanloads with people paying nothing.

Most of the time I think that with the  free downloaded app, the end game is to have some rich company or investors to buy out the developer after sometime. For that to happen the app has to be very popular, and i mean very popular.If you can’t get it to that high level then put some amount on your app, for heaven sake. make even a cent after a year. Better.

Why are the local apps not geared towards mcommerce?

Yes the answer to that at the moment is beyond my paygrade, but i will throw that question back to you, yes you reader.  Mobile commerce (aka “m-commerce”) refers to consumers shopping through mobile payment system. The most popular in Kenya is Mpesa followed by Airtel money and others like yuCash and orange Money.  In the last few days i have been constantly looking for an m-commerce app. This is not about a website with ecommerce function and transacted through Mpesa or mobile payment system. No, i have been looking  for a version of a company’s webpage that is designed to fit within the constraints of a cell phone. We call them apps, so i will stick to that. Where are they?

Something is not adding up. Although Mobile Money payment has provided widely available electronic network and payment mechanism in Kenya, mcommerce  in its true sense is yet to take off in a big way. Popular companies like Dealfish still can’t make money online, and still wondering what to do next.   I know people will talk about  paying bills, such us electricity bill to Kenyapower but  my experience with that is not that good. If your electricity is going to be cut today and you pay via Mpesa, believe me it will be cut because it takes two days before that transaction is reflected on the system.  For that, you better walk there and pay for the electricity in cash. Now compare that with when i want to buy domains through credit card and it takes only a click of button and the speed of the internet and i have the domain purchased.

Now we all know that one of the biggest  hindrance to mcommerce in Kenya is Safaricom or Vodafone or whoever is in charge there. The exact point is their refusal to come up with Mpesa API. Again i don’t understand why the Safaricom guys are not giving this a serious thought but i believe that on top of revolutionizing mcommerce in Kenya and beyond, this could be one great cash cow for them.  Yes, i know about those Mpesa APIs you have read about around but don’t believe any of them unless they can prove that they can access Safaricom or Vodafone server. And the true API for Mpesa will definitely come from Safaricom or Vodafone. …..Dear Bob Collymore if you ever read this,give us your thoughts on this as i believe it is a matter of National importance. …sssssshhhh.

That aside why are the developers not using the other network if Safaricom is so rigid to accept change which actually will internally help them? Big mystery. I find most companies in Kenya very funny, most of them are not willing to take risks and be the first ones to try and test something. Whenever you take something new to them, the first question you get is who else is using  it. Damn it people, why can’t you be the first one to you use it!!!!!!!!!

Competition and competition ..I love competition. Nokia announced last week  “Create for Millions” a global competition that brings consumers and developers together to create applications for Nokia’s Series 40 mobile phones. A million Euro prize money is in store here, Kenyan developers take note..

In this competition, developers are invited to submit Java and web apps for Nokia Series 40 phones in four categories:

• In the Know – News and locally relevant information apps
• Fun & Games - Games and entertainment apps
• Emotional Closeness – Social networking apps
• Access to Knowledge – Life improvement apps, for example education or health

For each of the four contest categories listed above, there will be 10 cash prizes, with a top prize of 50,000 Euros in each category. Top apps in each category win a variety of non-cash prizes such as user experience reviews and app marketing assistance.   In addition, special prizes will be awarded to apps that showcase the best touch feature in an app, the best location-aware app and the best overall Series 40 web app.

Regional versions of this global developer competition with additional prizes will be announced soon.

Consumers are not left behind on this.

Nokia’s Create for Millions challenges consumers to submit their best ideas for the applications they’d like to see on Nokia Series 40 mobile phones. Authors of the winning entries may see their ideas come to life in person at Nokia World later this year and can meet the developers who created them. In addition to a free expenses-paid trip to Nokia World, winning consumer’s can play with their new app on the latest Nokia Series 40 phone given during Nokia World.

Consumers are encouraged to submit ideas in one of three categories: health & education; social networking & location; and games & infotainment. Additionally, consumers can vote on entries and comment or collaborate on ideas already submitted.