Winners of this year’s Meditel mobile app competition. Wamda
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Wamda, by Aline Mayard (April 28, 2014) — Morocco is a country full of paradoxes. For instance, you can find 3G SIM cards anywhere, at the airport or on the beach, but local apps are almost nonexistent and the country doesn’t even have a dedicated App Store. To help remedy this, four years ago, local telecom company Meditel launched a mobile app competition to encourage young people to develop Morocco-specific apps. Since its launch, the competition has attracted around 2,400 participants, mostly students. Not all the apps have been excellent but the fact that most participants were first-time developers was a good sign for the development of the Moroccan ecosystem.
This was the case for Yassine Ghazouan, a second year student at Sup Info Casablanca and the developer of Lgardien, a very addictive 2D mobile game. It’s about the adventure of a valet who must collect money from parked cars. It was awarded the Student Prize at this year’s competition. The young student first heard of the competition during the competition’s roadshow in Morocco’s university. He explained his decision to take part: “I said to myself, ‘why not participate?’ It was the first time I developed a mobile app and the competition helped me do my research.” The young man liked it so much he has decided to specialize in creating video games.
The Grand Prize was awarded to Rachid Ourich for his app, Hkayat. It allows users to publish jokes from everyday life, as well as read and comment on those of others. Inspired by the French application VDM, it reminds me of Maroc Insolite, a well-known app that has been very successful in Morocco. Ourich wants to continue developing Hkayat and monetizing, hoping one day to make a living from his hobby. The second-place prize went to two applications developed by professionals. The first is called Daily, developed by Tite Tresor Ngoytha, allowing users to receive news and local cultural calendar on their smartphones. The second one is Bach Nwasl, by Yassine Aboudourib, allowing you to search different bus lines to move more efficiently around town.
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