More than 300 homegrown mobile developers have already signed up to participate at the South Asian Mobile Content Conference and Workshop, which is happening on the sidelines of the inaugural m-Billionth South Asia 2010 awards judging that will occur in Colombo on June 10 and 11.
The workshop, which is particularly geared for local 'garage' developers to learn how to develop applications, or even translate their web-based application, for the mobile medium, has so far exceeded the 100 developers initially anticipated by organisers. 'Garage' developers, or those who develop part time as a hobby, are widely expected by the industry to be the source for the next 'killer', or top-selling, application even more so than the so-called sophisticated mobile development firms. A market in which there are hundreds of mobile based technologies coming out every day.
Additionally, the workshop will introduce hobbyists to a web-based mobile development portal. This will allow mobile developing sans the know-how of the intricacies of the mobile medium. Also provided will be access to developer tools necessary to translate applications into mobile compatible form. This is important since there are hundreds of thousands of web-based applications which have, as yet, not been available for the mobile medium as tools to adapt them had not been easily accessible.
This mobile developer portal, offered by Etisalat and hSenid Mobile, will also give local developers access to a number of markets, not just in Sri Lanka but also through Etisalat's network. Successful applications will also result in 70% of revenues being channeled back to developers.
Meanwhile, this Monday, local organisers, the country's Information and Communications Technology Agency, announced that, as of Wednesday, May 26, 25 Sri Lankan mobile applications had entered into the fray to compete against other applications from all across the South Asian region. A number that they suggested will probably be much higher as deadline for nominating mobile applications, also Monday, expired. It was also indicated more than 200 entries were submitted to www.mbillionth.net as of the stipulated Wednesday timeframe.
Named for the statistic that there will be one billion mobile phone users in South Asian within the next 12 months, the m-Billionth South Asia 2010 awards will be held annually by India's ICT Ministry and Digital Empowerment Foundation. It awards the best region-wide mobile content and applications across ten categories. These are m-Business and Commerce / Banking, m-Culture and Heritage, m-Education and Learning, m-Entertainment, m-Government, m-Health, m-Environment, m-Inclusion, m-News and Journalism, and m-Travel and Tourism. |
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