MTN To Set To Announce Winners Of The App Challenge Competition

Accra 19th November, MTN�s App Challenge, launched by MTN Ghana in August 2013 has entered its final stage with the completion of vetting of the various Apps that were entered into the competition. During the final stage of the challenge, the App developers were invited to meet a panel of judges, made up of experts from the Mobile Apps industry and academia for the final vetting process. The candidates took turns to present their Apps to the judges who based their assessment of the application on their user friendliness, robustness, compatibility, security, app authentication mechanisms, operating platform, best practices and ingenuity. At the end of the vetting process, 10 Apps were shortlisted out of which 5 will be declared winners. The final 5 would be announced at the Apps Competition Awards Night scheduled to take place on November 26, 2013 in Accra. The Ultimate Winner would take home GHC 10,000, a Samsung Galaxy S4 and enjoy an all-expense paid trip to a Telecoms Conference in South Africa, whilst the other four winners would each take home GHC 10,000 and a Samsung Galaxy S4. A total of 55 Apps were received from individual and group developers. The applications received included games, entertainment, cooking, health, education, sports and social media. In a statement, the Chief Marketing Officer of MTN Ghana, Rahul De said, �in line with MTN�s new vision of delivering a bold new digital world, MTN will continue to take advantage of the rapid technological advancement to encourage the development of exciting mobile applications which are relevant to the local market�. He also noted that a local App Store would be unveiled after the contest on the MTNPlay platform. MTN�s main objective for organising the competition is to harness local talents in application development, build strong affinity with the developer community and provide an opportunity for developers to market their content via MTN platforms. It is also to help support the country�s national development through the creation of locally relevant and user �friendly ICT solutions to individuals and the business community. The competition in Ghana forms part of the broad MTN agenda to increase local content, In 2011, MTN Group launched a competition for the best Android Mobile Applications from Africa and the Middle East. During the launch of the Group competition, MTN stated that its vision for the MTN App Store was to have an apps platform whose vast majority of applications is, by and large, created by the developer community. The purpose is to offer MTN App Store subscribers unmatched user experience with exciting and varied content that cuts across all facets of life.