There’s been increasing interest from the East African region to develop computer applications that are customized for the local population, by the local population. In order for this to happen, there needs to be a two-way system: One way through which anyone can petition for an application to be built, and another way from which software developers can pick up these ideas and collaborate on building them.
Apps4Africa is East Africa-based software development contest that is doing exactly this. Here’s an extract from their website:
Apps 4 Africa is a contest to highlight the talent of local developers in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania and to leverage the power of digital technology to make a better world. The challenge is to build the best digital tools to address community challenges in areas ranging from healthcare to education and government transparency to election monitoring.
Apps 4 Africa challenges local technologists to develop tools on a variety of platforms that build on the needs of citizens or on open data sets relevant to the East Africa region.
The contest runs July 1st- August 31st. Winners will receive a small bit of fame and fortune — cash, gadgets, chances to improve your technical skills and the opportunity to hob nob with our judges panel of tech luminaries and civil society leaders at an awards ceremony in September.
Judged by representatives from private equity firms, media houses, Google, TED, blogs and other groups interested in the software development industry of East Africa, this sure does seem like a unique opportunity to share talent. We’re going to try and stay informed about Apps4Africa’s projects so we can bring the latest to you here. In the meantime, here is some more information:
Interesting, over the years I have heard great apps being developed specifically for the locals in EA. e.g the one by Okolloh and team that used googlemaps or something to report incidents of violence during the Kenya election dispute. With the rise of internet phones in the region’s major cities, we shall see great apps coming out for the needs of the people.
Few months ago, through couch surfing, I met a guy who had a very good idea . It was to make farmville and such games a reality. Some (many) people usually buy credits and stuff to play in such games so as to move to a higher level. Now imagine if that money was used to buy solar lamps, plants seeds etc. in a real village and there was someone in between to administer points in the game.
The games can also be open source, so not much money needed for maintenance and extensions…
Also the people participating in the games could see the development and such… The guy actually presented the idea as part of his thesis at philips. Philips Lighting was trying out its solar lantern in one village in Ghana [click here to read about the device].
I’m still in touch with the guy in case Philips want to try out the idea in TZ. I do believe the idea could work.