BlackBerry JamHack Challenges Asian Developers to Build an App in 40 Hours

Photo: Pinoybbdev.com

BlackBerry is really in need of help in its app section. Now RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM) is turning to developers in the region and asking them to boost the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform with tons of apps. For Asia Pacific developers, RIM is about to stage the BlackBerry JamHack 2012 in ten cities.

This event is scheduled across Asia over two consecutive weekends. Firstly, Bangalore, Delhi, Manila, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur will host the event on October 12. Then, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Melbourne, Shanghai will take place on October 19th, 2012. In Jakarta, the JamHack will start at 7pm local time. The winning team from each city will represent their countries to compete head-to-head in the JamHack finals, which is part of the BlackBerry Jam Asia event, on November 29th to 30th, 2012, in Bangkok, Thailand.

The non-stop coding event will be held for 40 hours. RIM promises that there will be an endless supply of food, drinks, activities, and giveaways. Teams will build apps for the BlackBerry 10 platform, which will ship in phones at the start of next year, and will get support from RIM’s ‘developer relations’ team.

For this two-day event, RIM will host community sharing sessions called JamBytes. Topics for the event will be ‘invocation and sharing,’ the ‘unified inbox and notifications,’ ‘going viral with BBM,’ ‘pushing data and notifications,’ and ‘handling payments in your app.’ All teams will also get insights from RIM’s tech experts, RIM’s virtual global helpdesk, and the company’s business development roving team.

The winning team from each city will receive a BlackBerry 10 DevAlpha phone, a BlackBerry 7 phone and a BlackBerry Playbook tablet for each member; plus they’ll get technical and business consultancy from RIM up to the eve of BlackBerry Jam Asia, and an all-expenses-paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Asia 2012 in Thailand to advance to the Asia-Pacific Finals. As for the winning team in the finals, it will get:

• the grand prize of an all-expenses-paid trip to the BlackBerry 10 global launch
• app co-marketing with the launch campaign, and AppWorld marketing for two months from the BlackBerry 10 launch in Asia, Middle East and Africa
• AppWorld marketing for one week from the BlackBerry 10 launch in North America, Latin America and Europe, inclusion in BlackBerry 10 launches in respective markets
• technical and business consultancy from RIM for three months after the BlackBerry 10 launch
• a cash prize of US$10,000

The runner-ups will get a number of fun prizes as well. You can register for the event on the BlackBerry JamHack 2012 site. Prepare to hack!