We started off with an intensive 40 minute bootcamp which consisted on Tutorials on how to develop BlackBerry 10 applications by leveraging on the Skills we have been using all along to develop for other mobile platforms. Presentations in this bootcamp were made by Shaun Benjamin, Tafadzwa Moyo and Kudakwashe Gore. Shortly afterwards we got into a discussion on whether it is better to take the native or hybrid aproach to developing mobile apps; Our conclusion was that it native is the only way to go if you have unlimited time, money and skills. Of course, because we live in a real world, we sometimes have to choose to build hybrid apps.
The winning app was iSight. The members of the team that developed iSight were Humphrey Mukwenga, Shaun Benjamin, Garnnet Mandiringana and Rumbidzai Mutaruse.
The app, designed for community use, notifies and alerts the community on what is happening in the hood. From that description, it sounds basic but the way it does this is indistinguishable from magic. It’s like ‘City Lens’ but works with SMS so it doesn’t chew up your data bundles. In fact, a better way of describing it is to say that it’s a: ‘City Lens’, on steroids, for fighting crime and corruption. If you don’t believe me, check out a demo of the app here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VWUQK5zcqo&list=PLhEj4ho2blIgCfAggmfl_oQczxzImPeEP&index=5
The other apps that were developed at the hackathon were:
| App Name | How it works | Team Members | |
| 1 | Event Diary | Event dairy took the second place.It has the capability of making people share and connect to each other with the use of events. So the old way of sending birthday cards, party invitations, and special events invitation is now improved with technology. It now takes less effort in inviting people to an event | Kudakwashe GoreJames MlamboTinashe MakasiTakudzwa Goronga |
| 2 | A productivity tool that helps you keep track of your professionals’, careers’ demand and values. It allows employers know their professionals market value and at the same time employees are in the full picture of their professions demand thereby promoting a symbiotic relationship between the two. | Shingi MandebvuKudakwashe MafutaTonderai ShamuyariraTaurai Mutimutema | |
| 3 | Hackathon Survey | This app was built on site from the ground that allowed hackathon participants to place their comments of the survey electronically to the database. This makes it easy for the administrators to get feedback | Tafadzwa MoyoSean Benjamin |
| 4 | MarketPool | MarketPool allows customers to launch their own marketing campaigns and is based on social platforms such as: Facebook, Skype, Twitter, biNu, Mxit | Tinashe ChihoroTafadzwa MoyoDennis Marumahoko |
| 5 | QuickView | This app is based on the web crawling technology to provide a search engine that supports subject based searches and location based searches. | Tafadzwa MoyoTinashe Chihoro |
| 6 | DeCorrupt | DeCorrupt is an anti-corruption tool that addresses road traffic corruption by implementing four key modules that serve to counter this problem through both pre- and post discouraging mechanisms as highlighted below. Based on a highly interactive map as the central data representation platform, Decurrupt PREPARES the driver prior to the journey through its route planning and pre take-off check lists to ensure that the driver and the vehicle are road worthy, if not, then that the driver takes immediate action to address the outstanding issues. It SUPPORTS the driver as he travels by receiving notifications of encouragement from other Decorrupt drivers in close proximity of the user who form the DeCorrupt community, by making use of its location aware features. It thereafter automatically GATHERS EVIDENCE that can be used to mount a case against corruption through voice recordings and post roadblock prompts that serve to collect information of what transpired at the roadblock , and SUMMARIZES the information through crowdsourcing thereby generating a crisis map to give an outlook on the level of corruption in the country. DeCorrupt also has secondary features that serve to increase the quality of travel through a real-time hazard notification system that will serve to assist in congestion avoidance by notifying the user of roads to avoid due to unexpected road hazards and general road traffic patterns at a given time of the day ( peak and off peak hours). | Bhekani KhumaloJabulani MpofuTakunda ChingozoBlessing Mukome |
The winner will walk away with a BlackBerry Z10.
The event was made possible by sonsorship from BlackBerry, Jumpstart, Mindcraft, Muzinda Umuzi Hub, William Chui and uMax.
Read the first installment of this post here.
7 comments
wat?!
I think data bundles are cheaper than SMS, how can choosing SMS over internet be spun as a good thing?
Well, that’s another way of looking at it
ichokwadi
If you watch the video, he clearly says it would work in the same way that ForgetMeNot works, like they did with econet. The cellphone network provides the SMSs for free, look at how much many free bundles telecel hands out, something like this iSight app is a good way for them to retain their subscribers
He actually says it works with both data and SMS
why use sms at all, for an easy to use message API check out http://pusher.com/
im interested in QuickView app. Obviously you may not share some of the solutions or algorithms you are using for your ranking system, spamming, indexing .etc. Back to business, 1)i would like to know what the app aspires to be? 2) how are you leverage your distributed database (if any). im working on something similiar as a hobby, so if you guys are interested we can share ideas.