ICTworks by Inveneo

Hive Colab is an open, collaborative, community owned, work environment for young tech entrepreneurs to focus on projects, access the internet, have a quiet professional environment to develop their ideas in, hold events and generally collaborate. Something very similar to what our friends are doing with the iHub in Nairobi.

It will be a space for nascent application developers to register as freelancers, if they are looking for paying projects that people need to be done around the world. An exclusive list of project and clients available through the pan-African consortium of incubators, AfriLabs.

Participant projects will remain wholly owned by their creators, although there there will be access to a network of investors looking to cherry pick some of the more promising ideas for investment, also through AfriLabs.

The only requirement to membership, is that applicants actually be working on projects, and thereafter they must be able to show progress on their ideas to retain membership. This is to keep energy high and to favour people who remain productive. There will be other types of memberships available to be announced soon.

For those who occasionally need space to host events and trainings relevant to the purpose, we are happy to offer Hive Workspace as an open venue. All applications to use the space will be approved by the board. Our goal is to establish the first Hive at the present location, and eventually expand by opening another Hive in a different parts of Kampala to make it a convenient resource for everyone.

It is important that the Hive operate independent of any contributing stakeholders, so that it is not any one person’s or group’s property. Thus, all decisions are made by a community board.

The Hive board currently consists of Teddy Ruge (Project Diaspora), Daniel Stern (UConnect), Solomon King (NodeSix) and Jon Gosier (Appfrica Labs).

Over the past few weeks myself, Solomon King of NodeSix.com, Joshua Goldstein an Appfrica Fellow, Jessica Colaco at the iHub in Nairobi, Philip Thigo and John Kipchumbah at SODNET (Social Development Network Kenya), and a number of very dedicated individuals from the United States Department of State have been working behind the scenes to put together a contest for African software developers called Apps < 4 > Africa.

The contest is a collective effort to support some of the many young minds out there working on ideas that would improve quality of life in African countries in ways that can be accomplished through software. In many other countries around the globe, these innovations have come from the bottom as constituents become more engaged with their own communities and representation. African countries are on a trajectory that’s no different.

Thus, it makes a lot of sense that civic minded individuals across the continent may also be turning to technology as a way to get involved. And like entrepreneurs of all types, hopefully it’s encouraging for them to know they’ve got support for their ideas and that their work will be rewarded.

This contest won’t be a silver bullet to any of Africa’s struggles, and none of the apps that come out of this contest will be either, but this competition, the prizes, judges and mentors supporting hopefully represent the type of community that can help a handful of these ideas and apps mature over time.

THE CONTEST

From July 1st to August 31st, we welcome citizens to submit ideas that technology can help solve, and challenge technologists to build tools that lead to a better world. The top applications will receive cash, cool gadgets, and the chance to hob-nob with our judges panel of technology and civil society luminaries. On Thursday, we are particularly pleased to have Under-Secretary of State Judith McHale join a group of civil society leaders and civic-minded technologist to launch the contest at the *iHub_ in Nairobi.

This is only the beginning. Over the duration of the contest, we will host events around the region that address a variety of technology platforms and activist themes. We’ll also be encouraging collaboration between mentors from around the world and coders in the region. Whether you are a citizen, civil society leader or technologist of any kind, we hope you will join us in the Apps 4 Africa challenge!

THE JUDGES

Anil Dash (Expert Labs), Nathan Eagle (Txteagle), Thomas Gibian (Investor, ECP), Joe Mucheru (Google), Emeka Orafor (TED), Ory Okolloh (Ushahidi), Tim O’Rielly (O’Reilly), and Rakesh Ranjani (HakiElimu).

PRIZES AND DETAILS

The prizes haven’t been announced yet, but I assure you the bounty will be sweet! Several thousand dollars in cash or gadgets for multiple winners. All entrants will use our repository at http://code.apps4africa.org to submit their ideas where they will remain as open source projects that others can either build upon or learn from. The other details like duration of the contest and rules can be found at http://apps4africa.org.

This was original published as Apps for Africa Contest Announced in Nairobi.