Vodafone India announces the Vodafone appStar global contest winners
Mumbai, India, January 20, 2015: Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecommunications service providers, today announced the winners of second edition of the global ‘Vodafone appStar’ event held in Bangalore recently. The winners from five countries (India, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana & Tanzania) competed under the two categories: Upcoming Developer and Established Developer. The top honours were taken by teams from Kenya and Ghana. The winners now have the opportunity to visit the ‘Mecca’ of mobile community – Mobile World Congress, Barcelona.
The Indian edition of the second annual Vodafone appStar contest received tremendous response from app developers across the country. The contest received over registrations 1000 developer with over 300 app submissions. India was represented by Maven Systems and Apalya.
The contest provided an opportunity for Indian brands, e-tailers, online players and developers who specialise in apps for specific verticals to build and showcase their best apps across categories: Gaming, Utility, Health, Education and App for good. The contest saw major companies like Snapdeal, Chifro, RailYatri, Zed, Apalya, Nimbuzz and more competing for the honors of representing India in the global arena.
The event was attended by developers, representatives from each of the participating countries, VCs, industry experts, bloggers and media people. Pratapa Bernard, VP & Director, Vodafone Solutions for Emerging Markets & Xone Innovations presented the opening address and spoke about the top consumer themes for 2015. Ravi Santhanam, EVP, Corporate Marketing at Vodafone India presented the keynote address and spoke about the 3 pillars of successful ‘data’ business – ‘Network, Devices & Content’ and emphasized the need for localized & relevant content to be successful in emerging markets. Joseph Ogutu, Director for strategy & innovations at Safaricom Kenya, spoke about the innovations happening in Africa in the mobile space.
Judges (including Vodafone senior managers, venture capitalists and industry experts) evaluated the solutions and declared the winners
The winning appStars who got Rs 50,000 each across categories from India:
The ‘SalesForceTracking’ app by Maven Systems is a smartphone based application used for tracking on field sales force and service personnel. And the ‘MyPlex’ app developed by Apalya optimises content for viewing on all screens, seamlessly integrating with mobile operators, content owners and mobile advertisers, creating new revenue streams across the New Media value chain.
Vodafone India had deployed the Vodafone Service Delivery Platform (SDP) last year, that exposes it’s Network APIs like Carrier billing, Location and more. The contest was open for all developers to build innovative and compelling apps across platforms: –Android, Windows Phone, iOS, J2ME, Blackberry.
