African developers are invited to enter this year’s the Amazon developer challenge, where they stand a chance of being Africa’s first finalist in the competition and winning US$100,000 worth of prizes.
So far, there has been no finalist from Africa since the challenge’s inception in 2007. The competition invites developers to submit their applications for the challenge. Selected finalists will benefit from Venture Capital introductions, important media coverage and PR support.
To qualify, applicants must be individuals or sole proprietors aged 18 years and over or the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence.
Applicants should also own privately held businesses that have not generated more than US$10 million in gross annual revenues and no more than US$10 million in outside funding, according to the organisers.
Developers will have to use the Amazon Web Service paid version to implement the solutions they are offering through their ideas. Other pertinent issues such as originality, creativity, possible success of the idea, scalability and effectiveness in addressing needs in the marketplace will also determine the finalists.
Fantasy Shopper was last year’s winner at the challenge. The startup got additional US$3.3 million from venture capital funds, NEA and Accel. Other finalists can benefit from major press sites such as TechCrunch and GigaOM giving them much coveted publicity.
Submissions to the challenge began Sept 14 and will end Nov 9.
