Kia Rio Winner Emerge in Microsoft 9japps Challenge

Microsoft Nigeria has announced the winner of the grand prize of a Kia Rio car in the Windows 8 category of the 9japps competition, a local app development contest aimed at empowering local app developers by helping them drive innovation and grow the local software ecosystem.

The challenge was designed to empower local developers to take advantage of Microsoft’s new tools and resources to develop locally appealing and locally-relevant apps for the Windows platform, utilizing Visual Studio 2012 and the Windows Phone SDK, in addition to the Windows Azure SDK.

Olayinka Oni, Chief National Technology Officer, Microsoft Nigeria while speaking at the grand finale said “We gave the finalist in the Windows 8 category two months additional time to improve on their solutions and we promised to let someone drive home the car today in order to encourage upcoming developers to put their best into the development of locally relevant apps.”

Oludayo Alli, beat other contestants to claim the grand prize in the keenly contested final, which had over 10 other finalist across Nigeria. The winning app, called Tourism Nigeria, allows you to explore your environment and gives real time information on tourist attraction centers and hotels in Nigeria.

Uchenna Okpagu claimed the second place prize with Places Nearby, an app which provides a direction of useful places around, e.g. hotels, ATMs, Banks, cinemas, etc. He went home with the sum of N750, 000 while five, third place winners went home with windows 8 devices each.

“It feels good to be the winner and for you to be a winner, you must prepare to be a winner. I would say my effort really paid off because for you to win, you must have put in some effort,” said Oludayo Alli, winner of the grand prize and a one-time National Winner of the Microsoft Imagine Cup whose team, Team Gravity represented Nigeria at the global Imagine Cup finals in Australia, last year.

For Uchenna Okpagu, the 2nd place winner “I am delighted to have been the 2nd place winner. It is an encouragement to do more. My plan is to improve on the app and equally engage more partners to provide us with deals that will be very useful to users of the application”.

Earlier in October at an event held at Co-Creation Hub Nigeria in Lagos, winners were announced for the best locally-relevant apps in the Windows Phone category.

Akinsete Sunday and Adedoyin Kazeem who both developed ‘CINEMAZ’, an app that enables purchase of movie tickets online thereby removing the stress of queuing for such, and also allows viewing of any paid for movie without going to sit in the cinema hall was named the overall winner and were awarded the sum of NGN 750, 000 for their app. The second place winner, Bukola Akinfaderin also went home with the sum of NGN 500, 000 while the 3rd place winners all received Windows Phone devices.

As part of the 4Afrika Initiative, launched in February 2013, Microsoft is investing in Africa’s youth and developer community, both of which it believes will be key to driving local innovation and economic development on the continent. The 4Afrika Initiative is built on the belief that technology can accelerate growth for Africa, and Africa can also accelerate technology for the world.

Microsoft also hosts a global student developer competition every year, known as Imagine Cup, and locally hosts regular Microsoft Dev. Camps, which provide an opportunity for developers to learn from experts, network with each other and practically apply what they have learnt to an IT problem. Developers can also access a variety of online training and support resources, including DreamSpark, Microsoft Virtual Academy, Microsoft Learning and BizSpark.

To keep up-to-date with local developer events, developers can follow the Microsoft Africa and Microsoft Nigeria Facebook page.