Safaricom Limited has today launched the Safaricom Developer Challenge, a competition aimed at equipping entry level developers with entrepreneurial and technology skills.

The competition will feature a 3 month incubation period during which participants’ will be required to develop apps in any of the following six categories: Agriculture, Health, Financial Inclusion, Education, Entertainment and Utilities. Applications developed during the incubation stage will be uploaded onto the Safaricom App-store for commercialization by the developers.

The Telco will award a total cash prize of Kshs.3.7 million for the competition. The winning app will be awarded Kshs.1.5 million and a further Kshs.1 million will go to the first runners up. Each of the six category winners will get Kshs.200, 000.

The Safaricom Developer Challenge Competition is a sequel to the Safaricom Appstar Challenge held in September last year and is part of an on-going commitment by the telco to help develop and nurture a profitable local apps industry for Kenyan developers.

“Kenya is spearheading the mobile phone revolution not just in Africa, but on the globe and it therefore, goes without saying that the future of technology in Kenya is anchored on the continuous development of sophisticated mobile apps which will address societal gaps,” said Joseph Ogutu, Director for Strategy and Innovation.

Ogutu further added that, “Applications will be assessed on the basis of their significance and impact, originality of their ideas, clarity of the idea, ease of implementation, and commercial appeal. These five standards are critical for any other developer who is determined to be part of this potentially lucrative industry.”

Aspiring participants have until June 28th, 2013 to submit their entries and those who are successful will be admitted into the programme in July this year. Winners will be awarded on November 1, 2013. Competitors can sign-up at https://developer.safaricom.co.ke/