<![CDATA[MPower Payments, a simple and seamless online payment app, won Top App of the year 2013, the highly contested apps award in Ghana at the TopApps Award event held on Friday, 4th October at Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT. It was under the theme “Promoting Innovations Made In Ghana”. They also won four other categories – Web App, Most Innovative New App, Top User Experience App and Finance App.
The other category winners are as follow: Nkyea Twi Phrasebook won Mobile App; Infoline won SMS App, Farmerline won Social App; iWarrior and Kijiji won Entertainment App; Retail Tower won Utility App; MoTech won Health App, MyPassCo won Education App; 233Law won eGovernance App; and Esoko won Agriculture App. Eyram Tawia of LetiArts won App Developer of the year and SMSGH, the developers of MPower Payments, won the App Company of the year.
Speaking at the award ceremony, Hon Victoria Hamah, Deputy Minister for Communication, emphasized the fact that “data is the future” and the apps which are developed locally must be “relevant to the business community and civil society”. She intimated the fact that with the continuous increase in bandwidth and mobile subscription, the country is ready for data consumption revolution which requires the development of the apps. She was very impressed with the quality, relevance and the number of apps which were exhibited.
In her welcome address, Madam Dorothy Gordon, Director-General of Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, revealed that apps developed from Ghana are ranked higher in terms of quality and finishing than most from other African countries, in the World Summit Awards, of which is she is a judge.
PopOut, the organizers of the annual TopApps Award hope to host a more elaborate and highly competitive awards event next year with sponsorship and strategic partnership. They believe this will create a sense of competition among the app developers and also empower the youth through the creation of innovative applications. They promise more innovative tech programs next year.
“We want to be able to give more prizes by way of cash, resources and packages to winners next year. We want the Telcos and other industry players to come onboard. We live in the age of apps. Apps are the drivers of data consumption”, according to Maximus Ametorgoh, Managing Director of PopOut.
“Internet is used to consume content online so there is the need to collaborate to create apps so subscribers can consume more data. People do not use internet because it is cheap or free. They use it because of the content they want to consume. If there is no relevant content, people will not subscribe to or use internet even if it is free”, he stressed.
TopApps Award is an annual applications exhibition and award event which gives app developers in Ghana the opportunity to showcase their innovative apps and games to technology and business participants as well as win awards for their outstanding products. The apps are judged based on their market relevance, originality and innovativeness.
Partners for TopApps Award 2013 include Google (Ghana), Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, Nokia, Erke Ghana, EventStreet Africa, TelecomEye, GhanaBusinessNews and Citi97.3fm. TopApps Award is a PopOut initiative.]]>
