Two Kenyans are still in the running to become the winners of the Safaricom and Vodafone Appstar Challenge, whose winners will take away $22,000.
The challenge, which is the second since the two telecommunications started, aims to give support to the mobile App developers in emerging markets.
Kevin Oti’s Soccer Story is an app designed to help a football manager move a team from the lower leagues to the national league while Joe Njeru’s Automs.gs is an SMS scheduler App that allows the automatic sending of personalized text messages on pre-scheduled dates.
The two will be competing against developers from Tanzania, South Africa and India. The winning App will take home $12,000, while the second and third placed apps will each be awarded $6,000 and $4,000 respectively.
In last years challenge, Kenya’s Gerald Kibugi and Gilbert Rono emerged the top two winners in the Appstar Challenge finals held in South Africa.
“Safaricom looks at this and other similar competitions as milestones towards creating a vibrant Apps development economy aimed at providing thousands of jobs to the youth,” said Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer, Bob Collymore.
A total of 2,200 apps developers registered for this year’s Appstar challenge which commenced in September. Out of these, 1,070 apps were developed out of which, the top 8 apps were selected following a rigorous mentorship and judging exercise.
