As you probably know by now – Huawei was banned from using American services and products and that means their phones are now being released without Google Services and Google Applications – which is a huge blow.
To mitigate the impact of the ban Huawei initiated their own Huawei Mobile Services but the only problem is that developers already put a lot of effort into making apps available on the Google & Apple App Stores and aren’t necessarily interested in putting their apps on other stores. Unless of course a carrot is dangled in front of them to make it worth their time.
This is why Huawei has now announced a new Huawei Developer Program titled Shining Star in South Africa. The programme is part of a $1 billion global investment that Huawei is channelling to encourage developer support.
In South Africa, the Shining Star program will reportedly assist developers as follows:
- Talent Development – Huawei Consumer Cloud Service division will provide formal training, online training, monthly and quarterly HMS workshops, online DigiX Lab training and DigiX Lab coaches.
- Innovation Support – Huawei DigiX Lab, which is an innovation hub, will give app developers access to senior developers as coaches, as well as hardware, software, testing and device support.
- Marketing Support – Huawei is also committing to assisting developers with marketing exposure through Huawei AppGallery, HUAWEI Themes, push notifications, social mentions and events.
- Developer Community Support – Huawei will provide various incentives and rewards, such as competitions and cloud storage support.
The Developer Integration Challenge will run until the end of February and will give developers an opportunity to win cash/ HMS marketing and paid for media resources to market their winning applications. Only developers who have registered on the Huawei Developer portal and submitted a complete app on the AppGallery will stand a chance to win.
The competition has 3 of the following phases:
Phase 1 – Until 31 December 2019, one developer will win a total prize package valued at R300,000, which consists of R200,000 cash; R40,000 in marketing support and R60,000 in media resources.
Phase 2 – From 1 to 31 January 2020, one developer will win a total prize package valued at R200,000, which consists of R150,000 cash; R20,000 in marketing support and; and R30,000 in media resources.
Phase 3 – From 1 to 29 February 2020, one developer will win a total prize package valued at R150,000, which consists of R100,000 cash; R20,000 in marketing support and; and R30,000 in media resources.
Huawei has a strong presence in South Africa so it makes sense that the company would go out of its way to encourage devs in the Southern African country to participate in their developer program and for Huawei they’ll be hinging on this competition to result in some huge exclusive apps that attract users to their new devices that won’t rely heavily on Google.
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