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Four African Apps Win In Huawei’s Apps UP 2021 Competition

Published

5 years ago

November 23, 2021

Huawei has announced the winners of the 2021 edition of the Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP), with four African Apps being recognised and celebrated among the 18 winners.

South African Coresthetics walked away with one of the Best App Awards in the Middle East and Africa region, along with $15,000 in prize money.

UniAPS bagged an Excellent Student Award, with $5,000 prize money, while Droppa and Secura received Honourable Mention Awards, which each come with $3,000 prize money.

“The Apps UP contest is a great initiative from Huawei, and I hope that we continue to encourage app developers to make apps that are beneficial to society. One advice that I have for developers would be to think more about your on-boarding experience, and let users test it out to see what the app does and understand the problems they may face,” said Ahmad Abugosh, an Apps UP MEA judge and Director of Marketing & Learning Programs, AstroLabs Middle East & Africa.

Other award winners include Real Car Race Game 3D: Fun New Car Games 2020, LittleAstro, and Scary Teacher 3D, each winning a Best Game Award, while Blind Assistant, Limit, and Emergency Buddy conquered the Best Social Impact App Award category. These winners will each be rewarded with $15,000.

The 2021 edition attracted more than 4,000 teams from over 200 countries entering the Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP). All submissions were carefully evaluated based on their innovation, social value, business value, and User Experience (UX) by a jury consisting of leading industry experts. The competition concluded on October 10 with the public voting stage; public votes accounted for 10% of the final results.

Adam Xiao, Managing Director, HMS and Consumer Cloud Service for HUAWEI Consumer Business Group MEA, said, “Creating functional, smooth, and intelligent applications is not an easy task, and through Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP), we aim to reward the developer industry for their outstanding contribution. This year’s competition was extraordinary due to the quality of apps submitted, and the new categories added garnered tremendous interest, particularly the Women’s Tech Award that saw over 600 submissions globally. We want to congratulate all the winners for their impressive submissions that aim to benefit our societies in different areas.”

The 2021 edition of the Huawei HMS App Innovation Contest (Apps UP) was launched in June and lasted more than 100 days.

Submissions came in from all regions including China, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The competition’s total compensation summed up to US$1 million, with a reward of US$200,000 in cash prizes for each participating region.

The winners were announced at Huawei’s flagship annual developer conference, HDC, which saw a line-up of sessions exploring HarmonyOS, smart homes, smart offices, HMS Core and more on Huawei’s efforts in building a new ecosystem of limitless possibilities. By the end of September 2021, the number of developers in Huawei’s ecosystem has reached 5.1 million, and the number of apps integrated with HMS Core has exceeded 173,000.

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Alake Inaugurates Nigeria-US Solid Minerals Committee, Dismisses $700bn Claim, Says No Assets Sold

Published

5 hours ago

October 28, 2026

The Gleamer

Joel Ajayi

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, on Tuesday inaugurated the Nigeria-United States Committee on Strategic Cooperation in the Solid Minerals Sector in Abuja, dismissing reports that Nigeria sold $700 billion worth of solid minerals to the US.

The inauguration followed the strategic cooperation framework established between Nigeria and the United States during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Head PRESS and Public Relations Department Mrs. Kania Maliki Andeyaba stated that, Alake in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed with the US is a government-to-government platform to facilitate business-to-business engagements between American investors and Nigerian local operators, not a sale of assets.

Harping on the importance of the solid minerals sector to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic diversification agenda, he noted that the administration was committed to reducing dependence on a mono-product economy through the sustainable development of Nigeria’s vast mineral resources.

According to him, the Nigeria–US partnership as a strategic initiative to attract investment, promote technology transfer, strengthen local mineral processing and create employment opportunities.

“There is no sale of any Nigerian asset. There’s nothing exchanging hands,” Alake declared.

“We created a platform to facilitate mingling of US investment ventures with Nigeria’s local operators. It is in the public domain. We signed it in public and published it in four or five national newspapers.”

The Minister said reports claiming the US was coming to take over Nigeria’s minerals and security architecture were untrue at best and products of riotous imagination at worst.

Explaining the policy thrust, Alake said Africa has historically held the short end of the stick in global economic transactions, and Nigeria is determined to change that model.

“We have the resources, the critical elements the world needs to transit to clean energy. So we are creating a new paradigm — you bring your capital, expertise and technology, to match with our natural resources and create a win-win situation . The investor gains, Nigeria gains.’’he said.

Nigeria, he stressed, had operated a mono-cultural economy dependent on oil, while solid minerals were exploited informally — with ores taken “from pit to port” without value addition.

Alake said government has now made local processing mandatory, refusing to grant mineral titles to investors without a clear pathway to processing in Nigeria.

He said the policy led to the springing up of processing factories, including the largest lithium processing plant in West Africa commissioned recently in Nasarawa by the Vice President, and informed the formation of the African Minerals Strategy Group.

Alake noted that investor confidence has returned due to macro-economic reforms by President Bola Tinubu that guarantee security of tenure and repatriation of profits.

He charged the committee to discharge its assignment responsibly, saying its work is strategic to achieving the President’s $1 trillion economy target.

To this end, he told the Committee to ensure effective coordination, identify investment opportunities and translate the framework into measurable outcomes capable of positioning Nigeria as a competitive player in the global solid minerals industry.

In his welcome address, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Engr. Faruk Yusuf Yabo, said the inauguration translates growing bilateral engagements into a structured framework for practical cooperation and investment mobilization

Economic Officer at the US Embassy, Jonathan Baas, said President Donald Trump has prioritized three areas for US embassies — energy, artificial intelligence/super intelligence, and critical minerals.

Baas said Washington’s direction is to work with partners to secure critical supply chains while ensuring partners capture value.

“We just signed a contract today on looking into building AI data centres in Nigeria at the Nigerian Economic Summit. That’s the direction Washington wants us to go,” he said.

In his vote of thanks, CEO/Managing Director of Nigeria Solid Minerals Company, NSMC said that the committee

is expected to coordinate implementation, facilitate investment and monitor progress towards achieving the objectives of the Nigeria–US cooperation framework.

The inauguration reinforces the Federal Government’s commitment to repositioning the solid minerals sector as a key driver of economic diversification, industrial development and national prosperity under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

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