Africa Business Communities
Telecom Application Developer Hackathon heads to South Africa

Telecom Application Developer Hackathon heads to South Africa

MTN South Africa has announced that it is bringing the international telecom developer hackathon TADHack to Africa for the first time from 14 - 16 October. The mobile operator says the contest makes it possible for local developers to enter and compete against the best developers in 30 countries around the world.

TADHack South Africa will be staged at the MTN Innovation Centre in Johannesburg, according to MTN which adds that local developers will be put in line to benchmark themselves against the best in the world, and stand a chance of winning prizes.

The Global TADHack challenge will see developers creating hacks using the global sponsors' resources. This year's development theme will encourage hacks in particular topics, such as BOTs, AI, IoT, Enterprise Communications, NFV, and open source contributions.

Benjamin Marais, Chief Information Officer at MTN says developers are expected to champion African solutions during this year's edition of the competition. "MTN believes this is an opportunity for local developers to decode Africa, meaning we expect them to showcase Africa's ability to solving African problems. Local developers participating in TADHack 2016 have the capacity to debunk the misconceptions about a lack of developer skills in Africa. The platform will showcase Africa's capabilities within the app development space, highlighting our own creative thinking and the amount of knowledge and innovation that is based in our continent."

Developers will participate in two categories, namely Hackathon category and Showcase category. The Hackathon category allows developers to come up with new ideas or answer a sponsor's challenge, while the Showcase category allows developers to showcase advanced development or commercial products to put themselves in line for prizes and industry recognition.

TADHack has the support of global sponsors including MTN Business, IBM, Huawei, ZTE and Comviva.

"MTN is bringing this prestigious global event to South Africa for the first time, as part of our ongoing campaign to stimulate innovation and development capacity in the country. Through our ongoing developer and start-up engagements and support initiatives, we have noted the phenomenal innovation and development skills exist in the country, and we believe challenges like TADHack help to bring them to the fore," concludes Marais.

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