News

Qualcomm to award $370,000 to developer contest winners

Split between 2 different challenges

Qualcomm to award $370,000 to developer contest winners
Qualcomm has announced it is to offer a total of $370,000 in prize money to studios tackling two different developer contests.

The Qualcomm AllJoyn App Challenge is set to award prizes for the most innovative games and apps to make use of open-source app development framework AllJoyn, with $170,000 set aside for winners across a number of categories.

Meanwhile, the Qualcomm Windows RT App Challenge is offering a prize fund of $200,000 in cash and marketing support, which will be awarded to developers working on apps for Microsoft's forthcoming tablet OS.

All join in

The AllJoyn App Challenge offers a grand prize of $75,000 for the best overall app, as well as smaller prizes of $10,000 each for the best gaming app, best social app and best multi-screen experience.

To be eligible, developers must create an Android app that makes use of Qualcomm's AllJoyn SDK, which is designed to enable simple proximity-based device-to-device communication through a number of different networking technologies.

The closing date for applications is 27 December, after which a panel of judges will evaluate the entries. A further public vote will determine the results of certain categories, with the winners finally announced on 26 February 2013.

RT time

The Windows RT App Developer Contest offers an even larger grand prize, with $100,000 earmarked for the Best Overall App in the competition.

The best gaming app will be awarded a $20,000 prize, while the app with the best use of AllJoyn will win $40,000 for its creators.

A panel of judges – which includes Qualcomm staff product manager Steve Hegenderfer, Windows senior technical product manager James Senior and reporters from Mashable and The Verge – will appraise each submitted application once the entry period ends on 1 October.

The contest's winners will then be announced on 18 October, just over a week in advance of the launch of Windows 8 and Windows RT.

"The market potential for Windows RT developers is huge. The Windows RT App Contest by Qualcomm is designed to jumpstart this incredible opportunity," says the Qualcomm developer website.

"We can't wait to see what you create."
Staff Writer

PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013