The third BlackBerry apps lab in South Africa, will be at the JoziHub mobile and ICT co-creation hub in Milpark, Johannesburg. This was announced by Blackberry on Thursday. The opening of the new lab follows the opening of the BlackBerry apps labs in Cape Town at the Bandwidth Barn in November 2012 and at the University of Pretoria (UP) in May 2012. The existing app labs has a total of 100 registrants; and have reached more than 1600 individuals through more than 13 events and other initiatives, with Nigeria which is on Blackberry’s list of African countries that will benefit from the apps lab still waiting for the first one to commence.
Blackberry and the Lagos State Innovation Advisory Council team, in March, signed a Letter of Intent outlining the intention to build a BlackBerry Apps Lab in Lagos
Blackberry’s Managing Director West, East and Central Africa, Waldi Wepener had pointed out that Nigeria’s software development community had clearly demonstrated an impressive growth and innovation.
The BlackBerry apps labs is part of BlackBerry’s work in 80 universities, colleges and schools across Africa through the BlackBerry Academic Program, which provides institutions with materials and content to teach and educate students on mobile application development
The new apps lab is expected to foster mobile innovation in Johannesburg by supporting even more training and support for South African application developers, as it fits the aims of the lab which is to help accelerate mobile application development and create new opportunities in the mobile space. The labs provide local developers, including students, start-ups, entrepreneurs and others, with access to resources in development, marketing, sales and training to help them expand their ideas and business opportunities.
