The winners of the Google’s Android Developer Challenge in Sub-Sahara Africa have just been announced. The Android Developer Challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa is Google’s competition to encourage the development of exciting, high quality applications that can delight mobile users in Africa and around the world. Developers in Sub-Saharan Africa submitted hundreds of innovative and interesting applications across three broad categories:
- apps related to entertainment, media and games;
- apps related to social networking and communication; and
- apps related to productivity, tools, and local and geo services.
The competition started in April 2011 and the 29 finalists were announced in July 2011. These finalists were provided with new phones, mentoring from Googlers and six weeks to improve their applications. The winner for each category has therefore emerged after a rigorous review by the judges.
Entertainment/Media/Games
Afrinolly – Nigeria
Team:FansConnectOnline Limited
Afrinolly brings African movies to your pocket, allowing you to watch movie trailers, read entertainment news and gossip, track celebs, listen to music and share it all with your friends.
Social/Communication:
Olalashe – Kenya
Team: David Lemayian, Capefield Ltd.
Olalashe (which means “brother” in Maasai) is a geo-alert application that can help you communicate when you’re in trouble, through a widget that can send your location and a pre-set message to your ‘In Case of Emergency’ contacts with the push of a button.
Productivity
Shoppers’ Delight – Kenya
Team: Elan Telemedia Ltd
Shoppers’ Delight is a shopping application that allows shoppers to compare product prices across different area supermarkets. The app also helps shoppers discover bargains and relevant sales, and access maps and health information.
Prizes:
Each winner will be awarded $25,000 to help them build and grow their business, and will receive additional mentoring from Google employees to help them make their app even better. The judges also gave honorable mention to finalist apps Rainbow Racer and Wedding Plandroid; the developers of those apps will each receive $5,000.
The bits team wants to use this medium to say congratulations to the @Afrinolly team for making Nigeria proud. The Afrinolly app can be downloaded at the Android marketplace by clicking here.
