Baidu MENA, in what has been one of the closest contests ever, the first MoboMarket developers contest “MMDC” has finally come to an end. During the last three months, those responsible for the contest had received dozens of apps & games from more than 100 youth developers, with average of one thousand downloads per day for each app or game, in what was considered as a huge success for the first year of “MMDC” in Egypt.
Baidu, The Chinese technology giant, had launched MMDC as an open call to find the next talent in technology, when they launched it in MENA region, there were some doubts about its success, and thus they ran the competition on a limited scale and its main goal was to explore and understand the aspirations and dreams of youth Arabic developers, but the qualities showed by the candidates exceeded Baidu’s expectations.
“Developing a mobile app or game is not that easy thing, it needs lots of knowledge, experience, trial and error, and imagination. To find all these qualities in students or young independent developers is our quest, thus we supposed it will take two rounds at least to achieve something” said Mohamed Zekry – product manager, Baidu MENA. “During the first round of the contest “MMDC 2015” we have received over one hundred apps and games from our candidates, and most of them were surprisingly creative and amazingly great. And now we are so excited to plan MMDC 2016 with a larger scale and more confidence” Zekry added.
MMDC has been a great opportunity for young developers from all over the world to find new partners and innovative solutions that enable their apps to reach out to a larger audience. Those willing to participate in the contest are asked to upload their app/game to MoboMarket, and after subjecting the submitted apps to the quality tests and checking that it doesn’t infringe on the intellectual property rights of any third party, MoboMarket promotes for each app / game among its 100 million user database for 48 hours, the app with the highest number of downloads will be eligible for the 3000$ prize, and the four runner-ups get 800$ each, same thing applies on the games category, this makes the total value of all prizes more than 12000$.
This contest is aimed to build a healthy, open and more equal environment for younger developers, so it’s not about the cash prize, it’s about supporting the young developers and encouraging them to turn their passion and talent to the code they write and make a difference.
“We designed MMDC to encourage the young talented developers especially the students who are able to think, create and refine our future” said Chief representative of Baidu MENA Li Weilin “We do our best as a company to give the youth chances to implement their ideas, as we believe that the development of any sector relies on the innovations of its talented youth, we are expanding now in Egypt and will give one of the winners the chance to join our office as an intern.” Li Weilin added.
During the contest, Baidu formed teams of talented students in different Egyptian universities under the name of “Baidu student family” this “family” is formed to be a bridge between the Chinese company and the students, this bridge is mutually beneficial, where students get the opportunity to train and learn in one of the biggest technology companies in the world and the company keeps in pace with ideas and aspirations of youth Arabs.
Li Weilin added “We have more than 50,000 employees in Baidu, more than 50% of them are developers. We are witnessing the age of rapid development in technology, that’s why we are searching for the next big talent all over the world, and after the promising results of the first MMDC in the region we are definitely expanding the contest in the coming years to cover more Arab countries. We are already thinking in increasing the valuation methods and enhancing the awards and honors program”
The winners of MMDC “Apps” 2015 are:
- Hamid Adaa
- Hazem Gamal El din Mohamed
- Abdelrahman Mohamed
- Sherif ElSayed Abdel Aal
- Walid Ibrahim Zain
- Mahmoud Samir Sheta ElMitwalli
- Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Ali
- Ahmed Rashwan
- Amr ElMasry
- Ahmed ElMelegy
- Ahmed ElShahawi
The winners of MMDC “Games” 2015 are:
- Amr Mohamed Khalil
- Mohamed Amin Zaghlama
- Haitham Al Saramy
- Nezar Yousef Ali
- Adel Mahmoud Mahmoud Hussein
- Wael Mahmoud Mahmoud Hussein
About Baidu
Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best and most equitable way for people to find what they’re looking for. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses to reach potential customers. Baidu’s ADSs trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “BIDU”. Currently, ten ADSs represent one Class A ordinary share.
MoboMarket is a free android market app. It enables fast & convenient downloads of 300,000 games & apps without register needed. MoboMarket aims to be the best free android market and to offer you a unique android experience.
