Huawei has announced that developers across Africa have extra time to ensure their entries are submitted for the 2021 HMS App Innovation Contest, AppsUP, with the entry deadline extended to Sunday, 5 September 2021.

The competition is in full swing with South Africa team entries leading the way in the Middle East and African region. Other team entries are coming in from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Mauritius, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. So if you think you have a game-changing App or the next big mobile game, enter the Huawei Apps UP competition now!

About the competition

The Huawei Apps UP competition is dedicated to inspire global developers to leverage the open capabilities of HUAWEI Core to create innovative Apps, to encourage joint innovation with global Application developers and to reconstruct the future of technology. The competition also aims to encourage developers to bring their all-scenario, smart life experience to Huawei end users in over 170 countries and regions, reaching over 650 million Huawei users globally, and to give them the chance to compete against global peers.

Dual award winner in the 2020 Apps UP contest, Zane Espin says the competition has changed his life tremendously.

“It has been a passion of mine to bring my ideas and dreams to life and make them interactive. I enjoy the various skills you need to develop games. Game development is a meta-art. I relish the challenge of having to be both logical and creative,” says Espin.

His most recent App is a game called Gauntlet, which earned him the prestigious Best Game Award last year. The game was inspired by 80s era games like Space Invaders and Galaga. He also has another award-winning game called Slug Hunter that received an Honourable Mention Award, which he says speaks to his love of science fiction. “Once I got into developing, I realised how much I enjoyed it. It became like an obsession that was driven by passion.”

When it comes to the competition, Espin stated that he has learnt a lot and continues to learn. “The journey with Huawei Mobile Services has been fantastic. I don’t do programming as a day job; everything I’ve learned so far has been self-taught. So, initially integrating the Huawei Core Kits seemed daunting. However, going through the documentation and with a little guidance from the Huawei Support Team, it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. I integrated everything I needed in one day.”

Espin adds that he can now call his game studio an award-winning studio, which will go a long way to help him make inroads into the international gaming scene. “There are not a lot of African developers who are internationally recognised, and that needs to change. We have unique stories and experiences to gift the world. We need better representation in the interactive entertainment scene and competitions like Huawei Apps UP help us get there much easier,” concludes Espin.

Entering Apps UP is simple! Here’s how:

Participants must register an account on the official Huawei developer web site. Applicants can sign up either as an individual or as a team of up to three members. All Apps entered must be developed by integrating HMS Core Kits and submitted on the competition’s official web site by 5 September 2021. The panel of judges will pre-select work based on social value, business value, user experience and originality.  Click here to find out more about the AppsUP rules around registration, submission and deadline date and time.

If, like Zane, you are passionate about App development and believe you have what it takes to make a mark not just for yourself, but the African continent as well, enter the Huawei Apps UP competition now.