A call for app developers: Test your creativity in Huawei’s Apps UP contest

In a continent of nearly 34-million unemployed people, software development provides significant opportunities for empowerment and employment. Africa has more than 700,000 developers — 31% of whom are self-taught, while almost one in five are women. 

Now in its third year, the annual Huawei Global App Innovation Contest (Apps UP) provides an invaluable platform for Africa’s best app developers to showcase their talents while helping to accelerate digital innovation in the process.

To date, Apps UP has received nearly 10,000 submissions from different parts of the world. This year’s theme is “Together We Innovate” and encourages developers to create apps that integrate Huawei Mobile Services capabilities and services which can enhance the experiences of more than 650,000 Huawei end users in more than 170 countries and regions.

Apps Up is the perfect showcase for African developers looking to create awareness for their innovative approaches to overcoming the day-to-day challenges people experience.

Kurt Mbanje, who received last year’s Best App Award for the Middle East and Africa region for his Coresthetics digital fitness coach app, says the HMS Core makes it easy to quickly deploy an app and not worry about mundane tasks such as user authentication or device authorisation for video playback.

The HMS Core is a mobile service framework that opens a variety of service capabilities to app developers.  

“Huawei has a large and continuously growing share of the world’s smartphone market. It only makes sense to leverage their capabilities by using HMS core,” says Mbanje.

For Velly Dingaan, the developer of the UniAPS, which won in the Excellent Student Award category for the region, HMS Core is flexible and provides an array of open device and cloud capabilities which can be easily integrated into apps. It enables developers to deliver next-level user experiences and make premium content and services broadly accessible.

“Huawei kits are easy to integrate into apps. The AppGallery is gaining momentum in the market, with so many opportunities for a developer’s app to be exposed to a large audience which will allow it to grow fast in terms of downloads. Apps UP provides a platform for developers to learn more about the latest technology and enhance their mobile app development skills,” says Dingaan.

As has been the case of previous competitions, Apps UP 2022 has more than R16m in prizes up for grabs to encourage developers to create mobile apps that bring a seamless, digital and innovative experience to end users. Of this, R3m will be allocated to the following award winners in the Middle East and Africa:

• Best application award;
• Best game award;
• Most social impact award;
• Best HMS Core innovation award;
• All-scenario coverage award;
• Excellent student award; 
• Starlight creative award; and
• Honourable mention award.

African developers who are keen to put their creativity to work and be in the running for these awards and global recognition, need to register an account on the official Huawei Apps UP contest website . Applicants can sign as an individual or as a team of no more than four members, including a team leader. The deadline for final submissions is October 9 2022.

The judging panel will review the submitted works and select 30 apps from each region for the public review and finals stages. These shortlisted apps will be highlighted for global promotion, on both the contest's official Website and AppGallery by November 20 2022. 

The public rating score for each work is based on the number of votes the app receives. Each region will hold its own final judging in December 2022. The judging panel will rank the 30 shortlisted works according to a comprehensive scoring formula in which the judging panel, public rating and HMS integration scores are added.

For more information on the rules and any other questions on Apps UP 2022, visit the official website. Don’t delay, enter your app today and stand a chance to win your share of R16m. 

This article was paid for by Huawei.