The BlackBerry Jam Session for universities took place in Kenya yesterday, attended by more than 60 developers.
The developers were required to come up with creative and innovative apps for the platform, with winners classified under the categories Best Social app and Best Business app.
“Salud” – Spanish for “eat healthy” – developed by Innorero University won the Best Social app category. The app seeks to promote healthy eating by allowing users to look up detailed nutritional information of the food they are about to consume.
“My Police”, developed by University of Nairobi students, won the Best Business app. The app allows users to search for police information in a bid to reduce the rising cases of police imposters in the country. The app also allows citizens to report crime incidents to the nearest police station,
as well as report complaints against the police.
According to the event organisers, the high turnout is an illustration of the high level of interest
amongst university students in creating apps for the BlackBerry platform in the Kenyan market.
Participants from Inoorero University, Strathmore University, Jomo Kenyatta University, Kenyatta University and Mount Kenya University attended the event.
BlackBerry held its first ever session in Kenya last year, where developers in the country engaged in an intense 10-hour programming session, where they were required to plan their apps, create the business model and develop them.
BlackBerry 10 Jam Developer sessions commenced in May 2012 and have since been hosted in 37 countries, attended by more than 9,300 people. In Africa alone, over 300 developers have attended the BlackBerry 10 events in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.
