Second edition of MTN App challenge is here

The battle of geeks is back on! In a 3-day Hackathon or Hack fest, MTN Uganda, in partnership with tech and incubation hub; Outbox Hub and Garage48 will bring local innovators from Uganda both students and non students- together to create innovative mobile Apps. These mobile Apps are based in the categories of health, media and entertainment, education, finance and agriculture.  

The first edition which was held in 2015 saw the birth of  ‘Yoza app’ an App that helps users find someone in their area to do for them laundry,  ‘Run For Your Life’; a 3D mobile game built to create awareness about HIV and other chronic diseases, ‘Common Sense’; a mobile app that challenges you by getting you to answer questions and you win points for all correct answers, ‘MamboPay’; a coupon-based payment solution that enables individuals or organizations to send funds to various beneficiaries in terms of coupons and ‘Dawa’; an app that provides access to patient’s medical information on the go while allowing a patient to dial a health professional at any time and from anywhere.



Commenting on the launching of this year’s challenge, MTN Chief Marketing Officer, Mapula Bodibe said, “Digital innovations are at the heart of true transformation around the world and through programs like this challenge, we are able to create entrepreneurship opportunities especially for the young brilliant minds behind the digital revolution.”

Each participating team will be expected to register a team of at-least four individuals and a maximum of five with skill-sets/roles. Its recommended that the team composition is of different skill sets such as;Developers, Designers, Marketers, Project Managers and visionaries.

A maximum of up-to twenty teams will be selected to participate in this year’s MTN App Challenge.

How the winners will be chosen:

1. Best M-Health App: an original concept to address the need for accessing health services in Uganda through the phone.
2. Best M-Education: the App with the most potential to extend consumption of education using the phone.
3. Best M-Media & Entertainment: the most original concept that enables Entertainment on the phone.
4. Best M-Finance: an original concept that can extend financial services to low income segment of the population via the phone.
5. 5. Best M-Agriculture: an original concept that aims to support the Agricultural industry via the phone.
6. Overall Winner: Out of the winning Apps in the categories above, this is an Application identified as most aligned to MTN’s current objectives in Enterprise, Consumer, Financial and Digital services.
7. Audience’s Favorite: This application will be chosen by the audience as their favorite.

All Awards will be chosen and given out on the 14^th, May 2017 as per the event program.

Awards and Prizes:

The Overall Winning app will get; a certificate of recognition for each team member, USD$2500, commercialization support through MTN, 1GB internet to all team members for 3 months, and a smartphone for each team member. The best

M-Health App, M-Education, M-Media &Entertainment, M-Finance, and M-Agriculture apps will each receive USD$1,000, a certificate of recognition for each team member, commercialization support through MTN, 1GB internet to all team members for 3 months, and a smartphone for each team member.

The app that is chosen as the Audience’s Favorite will get; a certificate of recognition for each team member, 1GB internet to all team members for 3 months, commercialization support through MTN, and a smartphone for each team member.

How to Register:

Interested innovators can register their teams free of charge at https://www.mtn.co.ug/new-world/Sponsorship/innovations/Pages/MTN-App-Challenge.aspx

Registration opened Tuesday, 11^th April and closes on 28^th April, 2017. All successful entrants shall be notified by 4^th May, 2017 via e-mail or through a phone call.