Africa Android Challenge, only four days to go!

We are very excited and think African developers are excited too. The shipment  of the first batch of android devices from Alcatel onetouch was made yesterday! The shipped devices include among others One Touch Idol ULTRA and One Touch Scribe HD
ask you to tolerate reading the longest blog about this year's Africa Android Challenge. We have a lot to share and little time as many of you have just submitted your app and we feel they are worthy mentioning here. There are a number of GDG BarCamp events happening this April to celebrate the winners of the first round of this year's Africa Android Challenge, check then out on the site.The Swag and facilitation for the above events are on their way to the organizers  some might have already received them.
To be brief in this post, we will not give many details as there are a lot of apps submitted of recent to review.

EzyBiz is an application that assists business executives to create, share, store and archive invoices, quotations and receipts on the go in Portable document format.  It was submitted by Gerald Kibugi from Nairobi, Kenya.
he also submitted Tough Jungle, an action game which shows the diverse of the jungle with wild animal in Africa with a strategy of moving the warrior across the forest. 

SnapRecharge was submitted by Tessu EPHRAIM MAWULIKPLIM from Kumasi, Ghana. It lets users recharge/reload their pay-as-you- go  voucher cards by simply taking a picture of the voucher card using their phone's camera .

Shaka Portion was submitted by Evelyn Muhia from Nairobi Kenya. It is based on a popular African tale of a young man who traveled far and wide through dangerous encounters (ghosts, giants and warriors) to get his sick, near-death mother the magic "Healing Portion" hidden deep within the Nzingobwe forest.

Africa at Large submitted by Sanogo Zié Ahmed is a bilingual application (English and French)  online and offline app which tracks only African news in the following categories: latest news, economy, health, agriculture, development.

Wildebeest Game was submitted by Owori Juma from Nairobi, Kenya. This application is a game about the migration of wildebeest across the Mara river in Maasai Mara National Park. The character is the wildebeest and the enemy are the crocodiles.

Nathan Mulugeta from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia  submitted an app called EvenOrganizer. This let users to create events, put their locations on Google Maps then invite others through email.

Bereket Abebe and Micheal Haile from Addis Ababa,  Ethiopia developed Afro News which collects new from various news websites and presents them in a beautiful manner.

George Gathoni from Nairobi, Kenya submitted  Directory Kenya. This app help users to locate all business around by the help of yellowpages Kenya. The app gives you link to the business contacts and its location.
Ibukun Muyide from Ado-Eikti, Nigeria submitted Cliss. This is an Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination(UTME) question based android Application, It will enable students to get familiar with UTME (Jamb) and post UTME Questions in Nigeria.

There will be an hangout about AAC's progress on 21 April 2013 between 2:30 and 3:30 so we encourage you to join the African Android Challenge participant's public community on Google plus to share and stay updated. For GDG and JUG organizers / managers there is a private community where information specific to you is sharedYou can also share with +Max Bonbhel  , +cedric Atangana   , +Lamine Ba  , +Basile Niane , +Nsubuga Hassan  or +jean-patrick Ehouman for any assistance by adding them to your circles.

AAC Management Team

Africa Android Challenge, a review of various apps from the rest of the countries

Hello Africa, it is really wonderful that we have innovative developers like those submitting apps for this African Android Challenge (AAC). We are grateful to Google,  Alcatel onetouch and Jcertif for the amazing sponsorship role they are playing in this year's AAC.

One of the Tablets to be won!

We have received many apps and want to assure you that they will all be featured in our reviews in this blog and or other media sources for as long as we have enough information. To begin with will be:

Yasine Ndaye from Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. His app called DicoKongo, is a dictionary of Kikongo  which is a local language and French. It helps people to learn Kikokgo.

From Dakar, Senegal is Ibrahima Coundoulx who submitted E-Control. This app helps parents and guardians to monitor their children's absence and presence say at school and how they utilize their time.

Mfawa Alfred Onen is from Abuja Nigeria, he submitted an app called MedicNaija, a medical app that helps it users to get information about prominent diseases, give health tips and check blood pressure.  It also helps in location of medical personnel and hospitals on Google Maps.

Mohamed Anouar Hammami is from Tunis, Tunisia. His cool app is called Travel Guide.
This app has first hand information that people visiting Tunisia should have on the go. It also helps to locate places like hotel and tourist attractions. It is a cool travel guide in a nutshell.

Cars Loger was submitted by Mnif Akiram from Ariana, Tunisia. It keeps track and log of activities like fill ups, parking, Services and Maintenance.

Yanick Ayigbede from Dakar, Senegal submitted SamaEventMobile. His app helps users to buy or book tickets to particular events.
Interactive way of learning for children was submitted by Gemechu Alemayehu from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It teaches English and Afan Oromo to children. It is helps learners to listen to the audio and have the visuals too as they learn.

Nelson Wasonga from Nairobi Kenya developed Rydshare-Kenya. Nelson's app helps drivers to offer thier empty seats to interested commutors through an online market place, it will help to reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion.
The 10 days left might be life changing for you, just submit that app!

Join the African Android Challenge participant's public community on Google plus to share and stay updated. For GDG and JUG organizers / managers there is a private community where information specific to you is shared

You can also share with +Max Bonbhel  , +cedric Atangana  , +Lamine Ba , +Basile Niane, +Nsubuga Hassan or +jean-patrick Ehouman   for any assistance by adding them to your circles.

AAC Management Team

Africa Android Challenge, review of apps from Nigeria and Ghana

With days running down to the deadline of the first round of  Africa Android Challenge 2013, we wish to remind you about the awards awaiting the winners of this round. Thanks to Alcatel onetouch for the awesome mobile phones and tablets. Those still coding should submit their apps as soon as possible.

Sample of the awards from Alcatel onetouch

We wish to congratulate developers from Nigeria and Ghana who submitted the apps we are going to review in this post.

EkifoQuiz is a cool app  submitted by Ekifo Team from Lagos, Nigeria. This app helps students / users to gauge their strengths academically through self assessment in particular topics. It also promotes learning as it encourages good health peer to peer competition amongst its users with quizzes sourced from reputable National School Curriculum of Nigeria.

Sunday Akinsente also from Lagos, Nigeria submitted TrackMyCash . An app that helps its users to track their cash flow and set up budgets easily. It also gives a graphical illustration of the user's income and expenditure.

 All African Live Radio was submitted by Nana Ghatery from Accra, Ghana. This cool free android app allows the user to listen up to 200 live radio stations in Africa using their device’s mobile network or Wi-Fi. It also displays some information about the song being played, you can browse available radio stations by country and many more other cool features.

These apps are all on Google play store so just click on their names above to find them on the store! More apps will be coming your way as developers are still submitting.

You can join the African Android Challenge participant's public community on Google plus to share and stay updated. For GDG and JUG organizers / managers there is a private community where information specific to you is shared

You can also share with +Max Bonbhel  , +cedric Atangana  , +Lamine Ba , +Basile Niane   or +Nsubuga Hassan  for any assistance by adding them to your circles.

AAC Management Team

Latest from Africa Android Challenge and review of awesome apps from Ivory Coast.

Alcatel onetouch is doing a great job of sponsoring the on going African Android Challenge, check out the prizes for your motivation.

Cool prizes from Alcatel onetouch

Well, in this blog post we will be reviewing the apps submitted by the smart brains from Ivory Coast.

Jean Luc Houédanou is from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. He submitted his cool app called AMN CoworkingSpace, this app helps the Coworking Space of AMN that Jean Luc visits often. It lists the various members' contacts. According to Jean, this app will promote collaboration and new ways of working together in Ivory Coast.

Ivorian Laws was submited by Flinde Regis Bambal from Abidjan, this awesome app makes it easy for the Ivorian citizens to access their constitution and other Ivorian laws on the go. It also allows discussions in a forum as well as reading its contents offline.

Diabate Mamadou Djemory also from Abidjan submitted MadTech, we will keep you posted regarding this innovation from Diabate after some tests and more details are submitted.

It is worthy to let you know that the submission deadline for the first round has been moved from April 15, to April 25, 2013 so as to allow those with apps to submit as soon as possible. The detailed agenda is on the challenge website.

There will be a number of GDG BarCamp sync events across Africa to celebrate the winner of the first round of this year's Africa Android Challenge in their country. Checkout to know whether there will be a GDG BarCamp event in your country.

We encourage you to join the Africa Android Challenge public community on Google plus to share and stay updated. For GDG and JUG organiser/ managers there is a private community where information specific to you is shared

You can also share with +Max Bonbhel , +cedric Atangana , Lamine , +Basile Niane or +Nsubuga Hassan for any assistance after adding them to your circles.

Africa Android Challenge Managment Committee.

Africa Android Challenge 2013 Review of Kenyan Apps

Africa Android Challenge, AAC for short  is a multi nation android developer challenge that is open and free to all countries on the African continent. AAC is meant to motivate, inspire and encourage African developer to innovate solutions on the Android platform that are driven by and for the local content. This challenge is also meant to discover hidden talents amongst the best developers and Android experts on the continent. African Android Challenge is also serving to foster collaboration amongst different developer and IT communities through bringing the Google Developer Groups(GDGs) and Java User Groups(JUGs) to work together as they organize and mobilize their respective members to participate in this challenge with a common vision of being innovative on the Android platform. This year’s AAC was announced on Feb 15, 2013 and its first round will be due by April 25, 2013 so for the rest of the Android geeks and passionate developers on the continent with apps to submit should do so as soon as possible. The detailed agenda of this year’s AAC is here.

An number of awesome Android apps have been submitted already, for those who are yet to submit but don’t know how to do it please find submission details and guidelines here. We will be sharing the cool and innovative app already submitted for the purpose of inspiring and encouraging those who have not yet submitted to get involved. To begin with will be the apps submitted from Kenya by the cool android geeks there so far.

Easy Parking is a cool Android app submitted by Thomas Kioko from Nairobi Kenya to the Travel Section of the competition. This app is intended to help motorists to locate parking areas with the help of sensors installed in the parking lots. Thomas’s vision is to reduce the time motorists in Nairobi and other areas take looking for parking space and to minimize fuel consumption.

Gamer’s World is another awesome android app submitted by Bonny Kashif also from Nairobi, Kenya. It is in the section of Entertainment. With many people playing games today and the enormously big collaboration between the games developers, collaborators, promoters and gamers. It is not easy to keep up with the video game world, bring all gamers' trending video game stories, walk through, cheats, upcoming   game details and many more in a simple and enriched user experience. With Bonny’s Gamer’s World app that will be history as users of this app will have much time to do other things and the app does all the hard stuff for them. This app targets all world gamer with what is buzzing in the video game industry.

KenCab was submitted by Said Fuad from Mombasa, Kenya to the Travel section of AAC. This app will help its users to easily locate cabs from their current location and also help them query fare basing on which route they want to take.

We will review all submitted apps here however, to keep updated and to share with other cool minded people please join the public AAC participants community here. Watch out for what the cool android geeks in Ivory coast have for this year’s AAC in the next blog!

Africa Android Challenge Management Team

DevFestW and Africa Android Challenge

As busy as a bee, that is all what African developers and their communities are up-to. The year began in style for the developer communities here in Africa, as they were getting ready for various DevFestW events, Africa Android Challenge was launched!

DevFestW is series of community-led events that have technical sessions centered around Google Developer Technologies and platforms. These events are focused on bringing together women in local developer communities to teach, learn, code and network. 

They are organized with the community needs in mind which makes them the best for the targeted audience. It is a fact that women are not involved heavily in technology activities and sessions as men, so DevFestW is here to address this and also bridge the big gap between women and cutting edge technology participation. At GDG Mbale DevFestW will take place on 30 March at Kayira Complex hotel from 9:00am to 5:00pm. There will be a lot to learn, share and code. Those in Mbale or near and wish to attend this big event please fill the form here! For those out side Mbale please check out with a near by Google Developer Group (GDG) from here or find out which GDG is near you for details.

Africa Android Challenge(AAC) launched on 5th Feb 2013, this presents an opportunity to discover the best developers, Android experts and hidden talents on the African continent. We at GDG Mbale encourage women to get involved in this challenge just like men. Last year's AAC, there were cool prizes and benefits including Android phones, Tablets and many more cool things. AAC 2012 was cool with several teams and individuals from different countries in Africa wining many cool prizes ranging from Android phones(Google Nexus One) to All expenses paid for trip to G|<country>.

AAC 2012 involved 21 countries in Africa with 132 courses and applications submitted, it was a success. Hopefully this year the number will grow big. What is required of developers or teams is simple, just develop an app in one of the following categories:

• Education / Reference
• Games: Arcade / Action
• Social Networking
• Life Style
• Productivity
• Media an Entertainment 
• Travel, Misc and many other area. You can also develop a course about android and still win!

The apps developed in the categories mentioned should be driven by and for local content. It will also be very cool for those that will use Google Apps for Android in their developments as these will fit in a another section but in the above categories. As the whole of Africa will be "geeking" on the Android platform, there will GDG Barcamp events across Africa to peak the AAC 2013 season.

The Agenda for the AAC 2013 is as follows:

Feb 05, 2013 - Africa Android Challenge announced

Feb 05, 2013 - Submission site opens ( work in progress)

April 05, 2013 - Deadline for submitting apps or courses

April 10, 2013 - End of first round, judges announce first round winners and re-submission start

May 10, 2013 - Deadline for re-submitting of app and courses.

May 15, 2013 - Final judging end and winners announce just in time of Google I/O

These are opportunities that we should use to put our skills to use and improve our respective areas and countries by developing apps for the AAC and participating in the DevFestW! GDG Mbale will be organizing sessions to help those participating in the AAC network and cooperate instead of competing for a common objective of innovation.

Include GDG Mbale in your circles on Google plus by clicking here and also go to GDG Mbale page on Google Developers site, login from the top right corner, refresh the page then click I am a member button that will show up on the right. You will need a Google account to this successfully.
Join our mailing list from here.

Happy Coding for AAC and DevFestWing 

Technology Twist Hits Mbale.

There used to be a handful of software developers and a big number of aspiring developers. The latter used to do their best while still in institutions here in Mbale. But when they graduated, there were many gaps to fill after joining the world of real challenges that needed first class and cutting edge technology to address, they gave up and diverted to other fields and business.
With the formation of Google Developer Group Mbale (GDG Mbale) in 2011, there was a big sweep towards innovation as developers and aspiring developers got a platform and podium to share, learn, collaborate and network. GDG Mbale gave them hope and it has acted as a source of motivation through the monthly events organised around various Google developer technologies , Application Programming Interfaces(APIs), open source technologies and joining the rest of the world during big Google developer conferences, Google IO for one. 

Participants of GDG DevFest Mbale at work

Events like GDG DevFest Mbale 2012 that had over 120 participants that included faculty members from Islamic University In Uganda and Uganda Christian University Mbale campus, developers and students from almost all institutions in Mbale were a source of inspiration. Despite some challenges this event was a success with speaker sessions and code lab about developing web apps using python and Google  AppEngine. Thanks to Google, our gold sponsor and Orange Service Center Mbale for the help that made it a success.

MapUp Mbale was another event that caught developers attention as they mapped business and places of interest in Mbale town. The MapUp was organised to improve Mbale on Google Maps and also contribute data that developers can utilize by developing apps that use location based capabilities through the use of google maps API and google places API.

Some of the participants at MapUp Mbale in a group photo

Currently we have developers involving in sessions where they are taught how to develop mobile application on the android platform. Soon we will be a having a place where cool like minded developers come together to share, collaborate and learn as they strive to innovate for the web and mobile platform.

The year 2013 will be great because we have a great lineup of events that will bring participants up to speed innovating for the web and mobile platforms. We will also have some special programs targeting and inspiring women developers. We hope to have apps on Google play come 2013, help Secondary school in Mbale to adopt and use school management information systems developed by developers in Mbale and many more cool things as we progress.

Stay with developers in mbale by joining GDG Mbale mailing list here. You can also follow us on google plus , Google Developers profile page and our website.