Google Student Ambassador Programme

The Google Student Ambassador Program is an opportunity for students to act as liaisons between Google and their universities. These ambassadors:

• Learn about innovative Google products and programs.
• Plan and host fun events on campus.
• Act as a campus contact for Google teams.
• Help Google better understand each university’s culture.

Africa Android Challenge 2014 - [AAC 2014]

Are you aware of #aac2014?

Africa Android Challenge #aac2014 is a competition that allows us to groom the next generation of successful developers and Android experts on the African continent. These developers will create innovative Android applications with a focus on #design.

Why AAC?

The challenge aims at increasing the quality of Android Apps written by African Developers and well as to increase the quantity of video content on YouTube and Google+ illustrating ambitions and aspirations of African developers.

Where is it happening?
1. Sub-Saharan Africa
2. North Africa
3. Middle East Africa

When?
Round 1 :

30th Jan : Submission site opens
10th April : Deadline for resubmitting apps
15th April : End of first-round - Judges announces Semi-Finalists
15th April : Shipping Android Phones and Tablets to winners (semi-finalists)
15th April to 30th April : Frame to organize GDG Bar camp sync events (GDG/JUG) to celebrate the winners.

Round 2 :

15th April : Re-submission site opens
15th May : Deadline for resubmitting apps
20th May : End of the second round - Judges announce the winners
20th May : The team announces the destination for the winners
Jun, Jul, Aug, Sept : The winners travel (all-expenses-paid) to the Android/Google Developer Group community event.

Categories:

1. Education/Not for Profit/Reference/Productivity/Tools Enterprise/Small Business

2. Games(Arcade/Action)/Social Networking / Lifestyle/Travel/Misc

Criteria :

- Effective Use of Google Cloud platform (bonus)
Such submissions must have an URL of http://aac2014-[AppName].appspot.com domain for the cloud back-end
- Usability on multiple screen sizes
- User-friendliness (Ease of use)
- Relevance to Country (i.e. value-add to users)
- Innovation and creativity
- Execution of idea
- Use of hardware platform or use of Android’s features
- Branding (clever, catchy, sticky or innovative branding strategy)
- Necessity  (solve a unique problem, meet a need)

Judging criteria: 

The Judges will evaluate each entry and give it a score from one (1) to five (5) according to specific criterias. The entry with the highest score will receive the first prize;
In the event of a tie between any eligible entries, an additional judge will break the tie based on the criteria outlined below
The team will create a pool of countries with less than 3 submissions

What tools do you need to begin developing Android Apps:

1. An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for example: Eclispe, Android Studio, IntelliJ
2. The ADT (Android Developer Tools plugin) for eclipse: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
3. Android SDK (Software Development Kit) - The Android SDK provides you the API libraries and developer tools necessary to build, test, and debug apps for Android.

If you're a new Android developer, we recommend you download the ADT Bundle to quickly start developing apps. It includes the essential Android SDK components and a version of the Eclipse IDE with built-in ADT (Android Developer Tools) to streamline your Android app development.

With a single download, the ADT Bundle includes everything you need to begin developing apps:

1. Eclipse + ADT plugin
2. Android SDK Tools
3. Android Platform-tools
4. The latest Android platform
5. The latest Android system image for the emulator

Important sites for reference and download: 

1. Main Website: http://developer.android.com/index.html
2. Traning classes: http://developer.android.com/training/index.html
3. Tutorials: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_resources.htm
4. Tutorials: http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/Android/article.html

We shall be having hack days and barcamps for the AAC 2014 but in the meantime you are encouraged to start developing.

All the best!

GDG Mombasa attending the GDG Africa's Summit 2013

+GDG Mombasa is highly honored to have it's Managers, +Said Fuad and +Alifiyah Ganijee who in turn are the GDG Champion Kenya and Lead GDG Women Mombasa, respectively to attend the GDG Africa's summit 2013 in Nairobi from 3-5th July 2013.

The two will be flying to Nairobi and will be accommodated at the Southern Sun Mayfair Hotel, the summit will be taking place at the Visa Oshwal Community Center.

GDG Africa summit 2013 is an event where all GDG Country Champions, GDG Women Leads and GDG Managers across all the countries in Africa meet under one space with the goal of knowing each other in person, listening to what other GDGs have been doing, inspiring GDGs, to incentivate inter-GDG collaboration and to get connected to mentors right from Google face-to-face.

Also, there will be several sessions, both technical and non-technical during the three day summit and we are hoping that it will be an amazing time in each and every way. We hope that every moment will be worth reliving

Together we'll represent GDG Mombasa to its fullest and make Africa the best region in the World to promote and advance new technology.

Team Africa, here we go!Let the magic begin!

Check out the event snaps here: http://goo.gl/y0t5V

GDG Managers Mombasa

GDG Devfest'13 Joint Tour Initiative Concept

GDG DevFests are community driven events that offer speaker sessions across Google products and latest features, all-day hack-a-thons, codelabs, barcamps etc.

Each GDG DevFest will be inspired by and uniquely tailored to the needs of the developer community that hosts it. But while no two events will be exactly alike, each GDG DevFest will, at its core, be powered by a shared belief that when developers come together to exchange ideas, amazing things can happen.

Here at GDG Mombasa, we are planning to organize a GDG DevFest'13 Mombasa event which will engage lots of developers in the communities, not only in Kenya but also outside the country. Plans are underway, please check back for more details :-) 

Africa Android Challenge 2013

Africa Android Challenge is a multi-country challenge which provides awards for great Android apps created by Africans. It is designed to motivate and encourage African developers to create innovative applications driven by and for local content a great opportunity to discover the best developers and Android experts on the African continent a collaboration opportunity between IT communities such as Java User Groups and Google Developer Groups across many African countries.

This whole effort is community driven and is a way to assure the long-term success of African developers invested in the Android application environment. The competition is a two round process - semi-finals and finals in two sections (Android apps and Google Apps for Android. This year’s AAC was announced on Feb 15, 2013 and its first round will be due by April 25, 2013 so for the rest of the Android geeks and passionate developers on the continent with apps to submit should do so as soon as possible. The detailed agenda of this year’s AAC is here.

In the previous years, i was looking forward to submit entries as it really inspired me as a mobile applications developer. In this year, i was able to submit my entry named as KenCab. 

More details and prototype on the app soon.