ICTworks by Inveneo

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji has just delivered a great opus on the future of software development in African markets, with a focus on Nigeria. His Google needs Android to succeed in Africa is well worth a read:

The gospel truth is this, Google needs a hardware solution to win.

Yea, Baraza and Google Trader are cool tools, but Google will only win the internet war if Africans can access the internet with google as their gateway and Africans are loyal customers. And if Africans still have to depend on Windows dominated hardware, Google might as well be prancing around with their carnivals and flashmobs.

More cause for worry for Google should be Nokia and Windows new partnership. Both of them are the leading mobile and desktop players in Africa right now. Working together means they can unleash a plague of incomensurable damage on Africans and eat up market share like no man's business at Google's expense.

So how can Google change the game?

One word. Android.

Android is google's beautiful, versatile and opensourced weapon against Microsoft's onslaught on Africa. Since Android is open-sourced, it can be deployed on any hardware including cheaper and locally made hardware. This allows it to undercut Microsoft's hardware advantage on the one competitive advantage that actually matters in Africa; price.

Also given it would be much easier and legal to engineer than pirating Microsoft, we can shift the creative energies of the innovative engineers of the Alaba Market from cracking microsoft DRM locks to building software they can put their name and Nigeria behind.

Thanks to Erik Hersman's tweet for the tip.

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Joozi proclaims itself to be a forum where software developers come together to share ideas, articles, questions and tips to help build better software for the world. If you have a potential open source project, post it on our forums and maybe it'll be interesting enough to inspire other developers to join in. The rules are simple enough:

1. If you have an existing Open Source Project, please use the 'Existing Projects' category
2. If you're suggesting a Project, please use the 'Start A New Project' category
3. For anything else, just use the appropriate category

So what are you waiting for? Put your project on Joozi now!

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Google is hosting developer and tech days across Africa with two exciting events, G-Uganda and G-Kenya, taking place early this September.

These web and mobile themed conferences will focus on Google’s developer and business technologies from Chrome Extensions and App Engine, to mobile and AdWords. Attendees will have the chance to explore Google’s open source technologies through a combination of tech talks, breakout sessions and codelabs run by engineers and business teams from across the globe.

G-Uganda will be held on September 1st - 2nd at the Speke Conference Centre just outside of Kampala. Closely on its heels, G-Kenya is running September 6th - 8th at Strathmore University in Nairobi.

More info at Google developer and tech days coming to Kenya and Uganda

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.