‘Ask the Lawyer App’ Voted Best At DevCon Alpha 2014 Grand Finale

‘Ask The Lawyer’ application developed by a team led by Oladipo Olasemo went home yesterday night with assurance of $300,000 market support by Nokia and a N750,000 cheque after being voted the best at the conclusion of five month long DevCon Alpha competition.
 
The application was voted by guests and panelists ahead of other nine apps shortlisted for the final.

Microsoft Nigeria in collaboration with Mobile Monday Nigeria (MOMO), Nokia and Verve had in January 2014 commenced the competition to create apps on the Windows platform with the launch of the first DevCon Alpha competition.

The contest that brought together app developers and designers (called Devigners) to create locally relevant, visually appealing and commercially viable apps developed on either Windows 8 Mobile or Windows Phone platforms achieved its aims, according to Tomi Harry Davies (TD), executive director of Mobile Monday Nigeria (MoMo).

Existing apps from Devigners and retailers that meet the eligibility criteria and available were showcased at the closing event, others from local Devigners that meet the contests assessment criteria and are registered in the Windows App Store, and proof of concept demos from Devigners who have conceptual models of applications that can meet the DevCon criteria were also presented.

Oyeshina Oyetosho, developer and evangelism lead, Microsoft Nigeria, explained that Microsoft’s partnership with Mobile Monday Nigeria is a result of the company’s 4Afrika initiative aimed at providing Africans with world class skills, access and innovation.

“We decided to participate in the project because we noticed there is a gap in the technology ecosystem. It is mainly to create a platform to close the gap. We are giving trainings, offering free access in as many ways as we can to enable developers create applications that are usable, scalable, visually appealing, locally relevant and more importantly, challenge them to monetise their creativity which we trust will make them employers of labour. This way, they can contribute their quota to the growth of the Nigerian economy.

Explaining the rationale for the project, Chairman, Mobile Money Nigeria, TD, said, “Our vision is to see Nigeria become a key player in the technology space and what better way to achieve this than by getting our youth to create apps on the Windows platform that will compete with those of their foreign counterparts. With DevCon Alpha, we have seen that we can begin the development of a new generation of Nigerians that will challenge the domination of foreign players in the Nigerian software market.”

On her part, Oremeyi Akah, country manager, Verve International, said, the partner-companies were motivated by the enthusiasm exhibited by the developers, hinting that the market support value derivable from the competition remains the biggest achievement of the winners. 

“We want to support CBN to push the cashless policy as well as offer commercial support to those developers with fantastic ideas to enable them compete internationally while solving local demands”.

Emmanuel Oluwatosin, developer experience lead at Nokia West Africa, explained that the competition was expected to run for four weeks, however, more time was given to enable the developers have focus more on the apps.

Second runners-up were ‘Cinema’ and ‘Skills Development Platform’ (SDP) with N375,000 each, while Save A Life came third winning N350,000.