Celcom Axiata Berhad, through its League of Extraordinary Developers Challenge (LEDC) programme will be hosting TADHack Kuala Lumpur 2014, an event that brings local mobile application developers together to create their own hack for a chance at winning global prizes worth USD30,000 (RM97,000) as well as the USD1,000 prize (RM3,200) allocated to each participating country or city.
TADHack is a global independent initiative to elevate profiles of telecom application developers by providing resources and create a sustainable and profitable telecom application ecosystem. It is the global meeting place for developers who wish to learn, share, code and produce applications using tools and technologies in telecommunications.
The Telco is inviting local aspiring developers to participate in TADHack Kuala Lumpur 2014 which will be held from 6 -7 June 2014, in parallel with the main event in Madrid(Spain). TADHack will be live-streamed from Madrid and TADHack Kuala Lumpur 2014 participants will get the chance to listen to expert speakers from all over the world and discover new technologies that will help to enhance their knowledge and skills in adding communications to their application services and business processes.
Local developers who are interested to participate in the hackathon can start coding using any of the sponsored APIs to build (telco-based apps). Those who are attending the TADHack will have to register for the event at the Celcom website and participants who are interested to sign up for the hack are required to register to ensure successful submission.
Participants are allowed to describe or present their hacks however they wish, from simple screen walk-throughs to a little acting. Their hacks will be judged based on the idea, not the presentation. The deadline for video submission is before 5.00pm (Malaysian Time) on Friday, 30 May 2014.
According to Suresh Sidhu, Chief Corporate & Operations Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, hosting the local TADHack is in line with Celcom’s commitment to be the leader in developing local technology entrepreneurs and offers them a platform to showcase their talent in producing and promoting Malaysian flavoured content that appeals to the global community.
“TADHack is a global event that gives us the opportunity to show the rest of the world what our local talent has to offer. We want to find the next big thing in telco applications and the local initiative serves as a catalyst to support and promote Malaysian application developers to unlock their full potential and at the same time, nurture Malaysia’s mobile application industry on a next generation platform. Given the right resources and opportunities, these upcoming developers are set to spearhead Malaysia’s global digital economic growth that will fuel the country’s economic development,” said Suresh.
“Through TADHack Kuala Lumpur 2014, we target to create more innovative and revenue generating voice and SMS value-added services (VAS) that meet the criteria of the event’s Priority Themes in 2014. We aim to sign up at least 20 new developers who meet the criteria, generate at least eight new innovative VAS ideas and commercialise at least one creative VAS. We have always advocated innovation and creativity, and through LEDC we are able to provide an avenue for local developers to showcase their skills and ideas in a thriving app ecosystem. This is an opportunity not to be missed and we strongly encourage Malaysian developers to take part in the hackathon. Who knows, this might be the big break that they have been waiting for,” Suresh added.
The hackathon is part of Celcom’s ongoing efforts, through LEDC to cultivate a new generation of creative application developers, it claims. Launched in 2008, LEDC offers a platform for software application developers to develop fresh and innovative mobile solutions. LEDC also provides the developers with a business opportunity to commercialise their software under a practical business model.
Since its inception, LEDC has organised various developer programmes on different platforms including Android, Symbian, Blackberry and Celcom’s very own SMS platform. These programmes are said to have groomed hundreds of developers and generated hundreds of innovative ideas with some of them have been successfully commercialised as actual Celcom products.
