Although not part of the official list of BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour for Enterprise Developers cities announced by last week, two South African cities, Cape Town and Pretoria, will be hosting the country’s BlackBerry hackathons.
Last Friday, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) called on South African developers to participate in a coder’s fest scheduled for Cape Town on November 3.
Following the call, RIM said: “We have added the Pretoria Apps Lab location! Cape Town and Pretoria will be hacking together in the first BlackBerry multi-hackathon in South Africa.”
These announcements come at a time when the ailing Canadian phonemaker is looking to launch its new range of smartphones, which will be running its new operating system known as BlackBerry 10.
BlackBerry is currently running worldwide BlackBerry Jam Sessions Super Hackathon to engage the developers into developing apps for its new OS, which would ensure plenty of apps are available to the public.
The Hackathons will see developers being challenged, individually or as a team of maximum six developers, to come up with a business model and develop an App on BlackBerry within 10 hours. Developers will have the option to use HTML5, C++/Cascades, Android Java Runtime or Adobe AIR technologies to develop their apps.
RIM explained the idea of “super hackathons” by saying: “We go to your cities, we bring the experts, feed you with breakfast, pizza, coffee and Red Bull, honour you with prizes and rewards but mainly, we work to create relationships with you.”
Participating developers stand a chance to win a variety of prizes including but not limited to:
- BlackBerry Jam Session badges
- BlackBerry Trophy
- BlackBerry Dev T-shirts
- Media coverage of success stories and Interviews
- Partner’s kits
- BlackBerry Developer Kits
- BlackBerry PlayBooks
- Cash prize for Best App
Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:
- Best App
- Best Game
- Best E-Commerce App
- Best User Interface Design
