Safaricom has launched the 2nd edition of the Appwiz Challenge, a developer competition designed to help identify and develop successful early stage mobile technology companies. The contest which will run for a period of four months and targets new app developers working in the mobile technology space, with a view to developing solutions to common problems within the Kenyan market.
“At Safaricom, we are committed to ensuring that local ICT start-ups have the opportunity to grow into profitable enterprises. We want to grow the use of mobile technology in transforming lives in line with our agenda. Through this, we hope to complement governments’ efforts in attaining our economic blueprints to become a middle income country by 2030,†said Joseph Ogutu, Safaricom’s Director, Strategy and Innovation.
The contestants with the most successful Mobile technology based solutions will have the opportunity to scale their start-ups through financial support from the prize money and partnerships with both government and private sector thereby making their business more successful.
Safaricom has invested Kshs. 7 million in the competition that will require participants to enter the challenge in teams. They should have prototypes of their solutions with each group ideally having a maximum of three members. The competition will operate on the website URL developer.safaricom.co.ke. Registrations and submissions will be done through this portal.
Applicants are expected to develop solutions under five categories namely; Mobile for Good and Community Development, Smart Business and Cloud Innovation, Financial Inclusion, Youth, Entertainment, Games and Media and Infrastructure and Utilities.
Last year’s winners included Tichaa, an app that allows children to learn Kiswahili in a fun and engaging way currently available on the Safaricom Appstore, while the runners up was M-Ledger, an M-Pesa based accounting manager available on Android.