With literally thousands of submitted apps, the competition was tough, but the 14 apps that stood out in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) were awarded a total of $220,000 in cash prizes.

The fact that 5,000 teams signed up and 2,500 apps were successfully submitted illustrates the widespread interest among developers. Notably, Apps UP’s popularity in the Middle East and Africa soared, as it was the highest of any region in the world outside of China.

The winners were selected based on the highest votes and under eight categories that summarized the focus of Apps-Up contest to bring to life breakthrough ideas and add value to users’ lives. The list of winners was as follows:

• Best HMS Innovation Award (US $15,000 each): CardioCam, Messiah, and Driver Companion.
• Best App Award (US $15,000 each): Advanced English Dictionary, Foodicious, and Dubai Police.
• Best Game Award (US $15,000 each): Survival Quest, Find, and Real Prado Parking Free Games: Offline Driving Car Games 2021.
• Best Social Impact Award(US $10,000 each): نَحنُ وهم, لثغة: علاج اللثغات و مشاكل النطق, and Pregnancy App : MAA.
• Best Arabic App Award (US $10,000 each): نَحنُ وهم, لثغة: علاج اللثغات و مشاكل النطق, and Dubai Police.
• All-Scenario Coverage Award (US $10,000): FilGoal – في الجول
• Tech Women’s Award (US $10,000): Pregnancy App : MAA
• Student Innovation Award (US $5,000): CodeFellow.

Lu Geng, Director of the Middle East and Africa, Huawei Global Partnerships & Eco-Development, Huawei Consumer Business Group, said: “The Apps UP Global App Innovation Contest is one of the initiatives that Huawei is particularly proud of. I hope that, as a technology leader, we will keep motivating the developer community to create apps that contribute to the greater good and advance our vision of an ecosystem that intelligently links everything. A piece of advice I have for developers is to consider the onboarding experience more thoroughly and to allow users try the app so they can realize what it offers while identifying any potential issues.”

The Dubai Police app was among the finalists who won multiple awards: the prestigious Best App Award and the Best Arabic App Award.

Commenting on this impressive achievement, Major General  Khaled Nasser Al-Razooqi, General Director of Artificial Intelligent Department – Dubai Police said: “Dubai Police is committed to being an innovation pioneer, and Huawei Mobile Services enables us to serve Dubai residents with next-generation smart services that simplify their daily lives and maximize their happiness. The Dubai Police app makes it easy to locate nearby police stations, report minor traffic accidents, pay fines, and resolve any other Dubai Police-related issue. Our participation in Apps UP 2022 was an enlightening and creative adventure that every development team should experience.”

Huawei’s Global App Innovation Contest (Apps UP) is one of the most exciting and rewarding initiatives tailored to meet the demands of the global and regional developer community.

In addition to the lucrative prizes, Huawei provides talents with the knowledge, mentoring, and support they need to bring their breakthrough ideas to life, paving the way for a smarter AI future for everyone.

Participants also have the opportunity to achieve global recognition by reaching AppGallery’s 580 million monthly active users around the world.

Currently, over 6 million registered developers take advantage of Huawei Mobile Services’ (HMS) revolutionary features, which enable the hassle-free development of high-quality apps.

Increased internet usage and people relying on digital services for everything from banking and shopping, to watching movies and playing games are considered significant drivers.

As an organisation that is passionate about helping developers reach their full potential as is evident through their global Apps UP innovation contest, Huawei discusses some of the key things African developers must keep in mind to build successful and engaging mobile apps.

The first step should be to choose a platform on which to develop. It makes sense to go with the one that has the most users. Up next is bandwidth and power considerations. Despite mobile data becoming more affordable in Africa, local developers should still prioritise bandwidth-friendly apps. If possible, the app should be able to work when the device is offline. This is essential for users who live in remote and rural communities where connectivity remains a challenge.

Furthermore, developers also need to account for the unreliability of electricity infrastructure across the continent. There is simply no place for power-hungry apps that quickly drain the battery life of even the most powerful smartphones.

All about engagement

Beyond these nuts-and-bolts components, any app must ultimately be interactive and engaging. If the app is unable to solve a specific challenge, then people will not download and install it. An example of an app that addresses a market requirement can be found in one of last year’s Apps UP competition winners.

Developed in South Africa, UniAPS helps prospective students discover their Admission Point Score (APS) for a wide array of local universities, as well as get a list of courses they qualify for based on their matric (Grade 12) results.

Of course, fulfilling a need is one thing. But being intuitive and easy to use is something quite different. This is one of the key challenges facing any app developer – translating how they solve the consumer problem in an app that is user-friendly.

This is where a development environment like HMS Core becomes critical. HMS Core is based on Huawei devices and the Android platform and provides developers with a mobile service framework that opens up a variety of service capabilities. Using HMS Core, developers can create world-class apps in an ecosystem used by millions of people worldwide.

With HMS Core as a development environment, apps can incorporate a multitude of services, including message push, quick HUAWEI ID login, in-app purchases, positioning, maps, games, and machine learning. All this is done to help African developers create a better user experience for their apps to differentiate themselves from global app development.

Huawei provides African developers with an enabling environment to create apps perfectly suited to the needs of device users across the continent.

The Apps UP 2022 global innovation contest pools the skills of developers from around the world to build an app ecosystem that intelligently connects everything.

Local developers can submit their entries as part of the Middle East and Africa region to showcase their talents and achieve global recognition.

 Huawei is calling all prospective app developers to log onto the Huawei Apps Up portal and explore the various app categories open to them for competition submissions.