{{Nokia has partnered with World Bank’s inforDev and AppCampus to offer grants to budding mobile applications developers in a race aimed at enriching its smartphones and attract more consumers.}}
The initiative aims at accelerating mobile application development on Windows Phone and any other Nokia platform with 26 best mobile application developers from Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Armenia and Vietnam are expected to get grants of between Sh2.2 million and 7.6 million each.
In the arrangement the developers will own the applications with the only requirement being that the app will be exclusive to Nokia App Store or Windows Store for 90 days.
After which, developers can sell them to other platforms.
Budding mobile application developers find it difficult to market and commercialise their products however, such partnership intends to reverse this.
“Nokia and AppCampus don’t get any equity or shares in the startup. This is a pure grant. The only requirement is that the app is exclusive to Nokia store or windows store for 90 days,” says Pekka Sivonen, head of AppCampus.
“Although the criteria to access the AppCampus funding remains the same, with ideas needing to be original, competitive and scalable, the advantage is faster processing and the mentorship provided by these innovation hubs.”
The three firms will be working closely with innovation hubs in these countries to scout for talent and vetting ideas to be submitted to the global pool.
In Kenya, mLab, an innovation hub that has been supporting local developers and helping them turn ideas into businesses will be in charge of scouting and vetting local ideas.
Nokia’s initiative follows a similar one by Intel that was rolled out in February aimed at supporting software developers in Africa through targeted investments in mobile application development.
Other firms that have rolled out similar initiatives include, Safaricom in partnership with Vodafone, Samsung and Ericsson among others.
The official launch of the programme took place in East London.
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