MANILA, Philippines — Four online applications created by Filipino software developers are now vying for a $20,000 prize money from Google after making the cut in the search giant’s first Apps Developer Challenge.
The four apps represent the most number of entries from a single country in the Southeast Asian region leg of the competition, with the Philippines besting neighbors Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore that each have only one entry to the competition.
The four Pinoy apps that made it to the semi-finals are:
- CollabSpot Notetaker, a tool that allows users to create tasks and document links during a Google+ Hangouts session (Enterprise / Small Business Solutions category);
- Events KIT, an app that helps users manage events, meetings, and meet-ups (Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun category);
- tsksticker, which allows users to create personalized comic strips and animations using drag-and-drop stickers (Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun category);
- and CleverNote, a note-taking app designed specifically for Google Drive (Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun category).
Applications submitted to the competition are designed using the APIs (application programming interfaces) of Google Apps and Google Drive, the tech giant’s cloud storage service.
“Google Apps adoption is growing in emerging markets, and people are asking for extended functionality,” the company said. “It is hoped that this competition will not only generate locally-relevant apps, but also recognize and reward the hard work of the most talented Pinoy developers.”
The developers must then build up and finish a final version of the application for submission during the final judging phase, which shall commence on October 25.
Winners will then be announced on November 12. The 1st prize in each category per region will take home a prize of $20,000 (~P831,000), aside from Google Chromebooks, which each semi-finalist will take home.
The Google Apps Developer Challenge is just one of the many initiatives by the search and technology company in attempting to broaden its reach and increase its presence in developing countries like the Philippines.
Last year, Google chose the country as the launchpad for its localized YouTube offering in Southeast Asia, topping it off with a YouTube World View interview with President Benigno Aquino, the first Asian head of state to be featured in the series.
In August, the company held the fist ever g|Philippines Google Day in the country, with hundreds of Google enthusiasts, users, and developers in attendance.
Just recently, rumors were rife online that Google will soon establish an official presence in the Philippines following the posting of various job openings for the country, although Google has yet to confirm anything final.
Aside from its regional headquarters in Singapore, Google operates in Southeast Asia in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
