Nov 6, 2010
techno park: All girls team wins Kshs 1 million
techno park: All girls team wins Kshs 1 million: "An all girls team made of two BBIT fourth year students – Lilian Nduati and Linda Kwamboka, and two alumni - Jamila Abass and Susan Eve Ogu..."
All girls team wins Kshs 1 million
An all girls team made of two BBIT fourth year students – Lilian Nduati and Linda Kwamboka, and two alumni - Jamila Abass and Susan Eve Oguya and Catherine Kiguru a developer in Tracom , won the top prize of Kshs 1 million in the inaugural IPO48 software application development competition hosted by SEP (Strathmore Enterprise Program) at the University from 29th to 31st October. The four are members of AkiraChix a group of geek girls.
The winning team developed an application dubbed M-Farm - an information service that focuses on delivering real time information to farmers on current market prices of their products. It also aims to bring farmers together in a collaborative forum.
Essentially, the M-Farm service will help small-scale farmers get price information that will help them know where to get the best deal for their products through their mobile phones. It fills an information gap currently used by middlemen to the detriment of the farmer.
The service will also provide farmers with weather alerts, connect with other farmers, find nearest farm stores and get help from farm experts. M-Farm has simple and easy to use features. It can be accessed in Kiswahili language and integrates an Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
IPO48 is a boot-camp style initiative whose aim is for developers to build new web and mobile services in 48 hours only! It was organized by HumanIPO and Garage48.org. It was the first time the competition was being held in Africa.
Blogger Moses Kemibaro wrote: “the IPO48 was a highly competitive and successful event with many great software applications and business concepts coming to the fore. Its amazing how much creativity and ingenuity was presented there and I found myself thinking more like a venture capitalist, rather than observer. One thing however is for sure – many of the ideas that did not win will still find suitors and in fact it was announced that one already had an Angel Investor in place!” See: http://www.moseskemibaro.com/2010/11/01/akirachix-win-kes-1-million-in-ipo48-with-m-farm/
For a full breakdown of the results, visit this post at Afrinnovator.com who also covered IPO48 in detail..
Adopted from Strathmore website.
Oct 16, 2010
techno park: Apps for Development by the World Bank
techno park: Apps for Development by the World Bank: "The Apps for Development Competition aims to bring together the best ideas from both the software developer and the development practitione..."
Apps for Development by the World Bank
The Apps for Development Competition aims to bring together the best ideas from both the software developer and the development practitioner communities to create innovative apps using World Bank data.
The Competition challenges participants to develop software applications related to one or more of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Submissions may be any kind of software application, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, SMS, or any software platform broadly available to the public. The only other requirement is that the proposed application use one or more datasets from the World Bank Data Catalog available at data.worldbank.org.
Applications submitted to the Competition should address at least one of the following objectives:
About the Millennium Development Goals
The MDGs represent a collective ambition for our world. Simply put, the MDGs express a vision of a world in which extreme poverty and hunger have been eliminated, and the economic and human welfare of poor people worldwide has been tangibly improved. The MDGs articulate specific targets to be reached by 2015 related to poverty and hunger, universal education, child health and other crucial dimensions.
The Competition challenges participants to develop software applications related to one or more of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Submissions may be any kind of software application, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, SMS, or any software platform broadly available to the public. The only other requirement is that the proposed application use one or more datasets from the World Bank Data Catalog available at data.worldbank.org.
Applications submitted to the Competition should address at least one of the following objectives:
- Raise awareness of at least one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), or
- Contribute to progress toward meeting one of the MDGs by 2015.
About the Millennium Development Goals
The MDGs represent a collective ambition for our world. Simply put, the MDGs express a vision of a world in which extreme poverty and hunger have been eliminated, and the economic and human welfare of poor people worldwide has been tangibly improved. The MDGs articulate specific targets to be reached by 2015 related to poverty and hunger, universal education, child health and other crucial dimensions.
How to enter
Interested participants must register for the contest on this webpage by creating an account between October 7, 2010, and January 10, 2011. Registrants will receive an email, which they must use to verify their account. Once registered, participants may enter their submissions via the Submit Application tab. In order to be considered, each submission must include: a link to the application, a video of the application, a text-based description of the application, and at least one still photograph of the working application.
The Challenge is open to all individuals from member countries of the World Bank (see: worldbank.org) who have attained the age of majority in their individual nations at the time of their entries, as well as companies with fewer than fifty employees. Organizations employing fifty or more employees are eligible for the Large Organization Recognition award.
In order to be considered for prizes, submissions must be original software applications solely owned by the entrant(s), which must use at least one of the World Bank datasets found at http://data.worldbank.org. We encourage you to view the Resources Page to find more information on the data and the MDG's. The text descriptions in the contest submission must accurately describe the functionality of the application, and all submitted materials must be in English, or include an English translation. Submissions must eschew indecency, defamation, violence, pornography, and obvious bad taste.
All entrants will retain all intellectual property ownership in their submissions. All interested applicants must read the complete version of the Official Rules document. The rules listed here provide only a brief introduction and overview, and do not constitute a complete list of all requirements and restrictions that apply to this competition.
The Challenge is open to all individuals from member countries of the World Bank (see: worldbank.org) who have attained the age of majority in their individual nations at the time of their entries, as well as companies with fewer than fifty employees. Organizations employing fifty or more employees are eligible for the Large Organization Recognition award.
In order to be considered for prizes, submissions must be original software applications solely owned by the entrant(s), which must use at least one of the World Bank datasets found at http://data.worldbank.org. We encourage you to view the Resources Page to find more information on the data and the MDG's. The text descriptions in the contest submission must accurately describe the functionality of the application, and all submitted materials must be in English, or include an English translation. Submissions must eschew indecency, defamation, violence, pornography, and obvious bad taste.
All entrants will retain all intellectual property ownership in their submissions. All interested applicants must read the complete version of the Official Rules document. The rules listed here provide only a brief introduction and overview, and do not constitute a complete list of all requirements and restrictions that apply to this competition.
Important dates
- Submission Period:
- Start: Oct 07, 2010 12:00 PM EDT End: Jan 10, 2011 05:00 PM EST
- Judging Period:
- Start: Jan 31, 2011 12:00 PM EST End: Feb 28, 2011 05:00 PM EST
- Public Voting Period:
- Start: Jan 31, 2011 12:00 PM EST End: Feb 28, 2011 05:00 PM EST
- Winners announced:
- April, 2011
Judges
- Shaida Badlee
- Director, Development Data Group, World Bank
- Shanta Devarajan
- Chief Economist, Africa Region, World Bank
- Jussi Hinkkanen
- Head of Government Affairs, Middle East and Africa, Nokia
- Homi Kharas
- Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institution
- Eduardo Lora
- Chief Economist (a.i.) and General Manager, Research Department, Inter-American Bank
- Craig Newmark
- Founder, Craigslist, Inc.
- Ory Okolloh
- Executive Director and Co-founder, Ushahidi
- Kannan Pashupathy
- Director, Engineering, Google
- Jean-Louis Sarbib
- Chief Executive Officer, Development Gateway
Judging criteria
- Quality of the Idea
- Including creativity and originality
- Implementation of the Idea
- Including user experience, design, and performance
- Potential Impact on the Competition Objectives
- Which are 1) raising awareness of, or 2) making progress toward achieving at least one MDG
Prizes
- First Prize
- $15,000 USD
- Second Prize
- $10,000 USD
- Third Prize
- $5,000 USD
- Honorable Mentions (5)
- $2,000 USD Each
- Popular Choice Award
- $5,000 USD
Oct 8, 2010
mWomen Bottom Of Pyramid App Challenge
The mWomen team yesterday, announced the launch of the mWomen BOP App Challenge sponsored by Vodafone, at the official launch of the mWomen programme at the US State Department hosted by Secretary Hillary Clinton.
This exciting challenge, supported by Frog Design and Carmel Ventures aims to build on the momentum currently in the marketplace for innovative app design and to provide fresh, original app solutions for women in developing countries living on under $2 a day. It also aims to catalyse an increase in the adoption and use of services provided through mobile technology, enhancing and empowering women’s decision making process.
This challenge is in line with the mWomen programme objectives of bringing access and innovative products and services to currently unconnected women in developing countries. It is a two tier challenge: Tier 1 will be an app for a low end device and Tier 2 will be an app for smart phones.
The winner will receive full support for their app to not only help change the lives of millions of women living on less than $2/day, but to also become a global leader in app design with distribution, design and business support.
The prize:
- $10,000.00 to the winner of each tier sponsored by Vodafone
- Entrance to Mobile World Congress 2011 for one team member of each winning tier
- Flight and accommodation to attend MWC 2011 for one team member of each winning tier
- Opportunity to showcase your winning app at the mWomen Seminar at MWC
- Opportunity to showcase your winning app at the next mWomen Working Group (post MWC 2011)
- Exclusive access to a leading venture capitalist to assist in the development of your app
- Exclusive access to a leading innovation and design company
To enter please go to www.mwomen.org/appschallenge
You bet I will participate,will you?
XoXo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)