The newly launched tech hub in Kenya, Startup Garage will host its first major event on Saturday when eMobilis, a technology academy brings the Ignite Hackathon to Nairobi.
Sponsored by Nokia, the Ignite Hackathon invites students, entrepreneurs and developers with the passion to develop for mobile to launch scalable applications into the local market in 36 hours.
“Many young developers do not have access to global publishing platforms and this is a great opportunity for them to get published on the Nokia Store and using the most popular platform, the Series 40 ”, said Ken Mwenda, the Managing Director of eMobilis in an press release.
A three judge bench will select 3 winning applications that will need to meet their criteria: solve a mass problem, be easy to use, have a cool brand – aesthetics / user interface and to be usable beyond Kenya.
While there will be consolation prizes for the 4th, 5th & 6th positions, the top winners will bag cash prizes- 1st Prize ($ 5,000), 2nd prize ($ 3000) and 3rd prize ($ 500). The first 25 developers to publish to the Nokia Store by the 27th of March 2012 will also be in play for Kes 10, 000.
It will be all systems go at the Startup Garage this Saturday as the programme is set to start at 9am 24th March 2012 and close at 5pm 25th March, 2012. James Mwai winner of the Nokia for Millions Challenge is among the invited guests.
