Africa Wins Big at the Global Ericsson Application Awards

• The 2012 Ericsson Application Awards is a global contest that aims to highlight the talents of top developers, students and entrepreneurs
• Kenyan team MedAfrica wins award over competitors from Egypt and China in the finals
• Winning mobile application seeks to improve access to health-care services via mobile phones
  

Ericsson has announced the winning teams for the annual Ericsson Application Awards in Stockholm Sweden with team MedAfrica from Kenya taking home the gold. The team developed a mobile application which seeks to improve the health of communities and regions in Africa by increasing access to health-care related information and services via mobile phones.

Health is a universal concern which affects the output of communities and has a direct impact on their socioeconomic standing. The absence of a well-established healthcare systemposes a particularly serious challenge in Africa, and has raised concerns at an international level.

Speaking about the award, Steve Mutindateam leader, MedAfrica commented, “It has been an exciting journey and we are proud to be the global winners. We are confident that our application will be of great support to improving health related problems on the African continent and beyond.  We look forward to the next phase of this project, making MedAfrica a household name”.
The market for mobileapplications, or apps, has exploded over the past few yearsand is expected tobe worth more than U.S.$ 21 billion in 2014.This growth hasbeen driven bythe rise of smartphones, the development of mobile internet, and the advent of several operating systems including the open-source Android mobile operating system.

The Ericsson Application Awards is an annual competition for application developers organized by Ericsson Research. To ensure that the winning apps can be used by as many people as possible, this competition is for Android applications.

The purpose of this year's theme ‘Apps for the Networked Society’ was to promote innovations from a variety of environments, places and situations, as well as by connecting people, things and places to empower individuals and society. The competition drew in 190,000 visitors to the EAA 2012 campaign site, included 727 registered users and 143 registered teams, with over 240 submissions of ideas, videos, and applications.In addition, 600 users from Europe, Africa and China participated in the evaluation and selection of finalists.
Jan Färjh, Head of Ericsson Research and host of the awards, said: “MedAfricais one excellent example of applications in the Networked Society. We are very proud of highlighting the team’s achievements.”
The jury’s justification for the decision was: “For the potential to bring important information to many people and give them the power and knowledge to take better care of their communities.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:
More information on MedAfrica application: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ce0CM-kmk
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