Orange launched its largest international developer challenge to date - across 13 countries aiming to spur and nurture the creation of unique and local services for Africa and the Middle East.
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This coincides with the release of its SMS APIs in five new countries: Cameroon, Congo, Guinea, Niger, and Senegal.
The Orange AMEA Developer Challenge 2015 is launching to start-ups from Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Congo, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Cameroon and Botswana.
Orange is also inviting submissions from France in this year’s challenge given the unique insight French start-ups can bring to the design and development of new services for users in Africa and the Middle East.
Submissions for the Orange AMEA Developer Challenge 2015 will be open from 3 August to 15 September 2015. 10 start-ups from each country will be selected to compete until the end of October.
Orange will make a trio of APIs available (SMS, USSD and Director Operator Billing) on a test platform. Each of the participating 13 countries will identify and reward one winning project, with one global winner awarded a €10,000 prize to be announced in November 2015.
More than 90 developers from four African countries participated in last year’s 2014 challenge, resulting in a range of new services being launched including the winning project mLouma, a start-up from Senegal who developed a portal for m-agriculture to connect buyers and sellers.
Using Orange APIs, mLouma created a USSD and SMS version of their portal and were able to start charging customers after integrating the Orange Carrier Billing API. ■
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