BlackBerry has taken another stride in catching up to its rivals in the competitive applications space, by opening its third local apps lab.
About six months since the smartphone maker unveiled its second lab, in Cape Town, and a year since the inception of apps labs in SA, BlackBerry yesterday announced its Johannesburg workshop, based at the JoziHub mobile and ICT co-creation hub in Milpark.
Set up in February, JoziHub acts as a platform for nurturing entrepreneurship and offering aspiring students and developers a platform to learn and create in the world of apps.
Alexandra Zagury, MD for SA and Southern Africa at BlackBerry, says JoziHub was chosen as the third venue for the company's local labs, because it has backing from "heavyweights in the tech industry" and is located near the universities of the Witwatersrand and Johannesburg - the two largest universities in the city.
Zagury says the third apps lab was set up in a bid to offer South African developers better training and support.
"The aim of the BlackBerry apps labs is to help accelerate mobile application development in SA and create new opportunities in the mobile space."
BlackBerry says it is working with the relevant stakeholders to bolster the local mobile innovation ecosystem. "This aligns with the objectives of the South African Department of Communications' eSkills Institute to stimulate research, development and innovation."
The labs provide local developers, including students, start-ups, entrepreneurs and others, access to resources in development, marketing, sales and training to help them expand their ideas and business opportunities.
According to BlackBerry, the two labs established last year now have a total of 100 registrants and have reached over 1 600 individuals through events and initiatives.
The BlackBerry apps labs form part of the company's developer programme that spans Africa. BlackBerry has been working with 80 universities, colleges and schools across Africa through the BlackBerry Academic Programme, which provides institutions with materials and content to teach and educate students on mobile application development, and plans to open a developer lab in Nigeria later this year.
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