DIGICEL was announced as the exclusive telecommunications sponsor behind the BlackBerry Developers Competition in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Research in Motion (RIM).

Spearheaded by the Ministry of Education and the Department of Information and Telecommunication (DIT), the competition targets students in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions across the island. With a focus on stimulating innovation and entrepreneurism, the initiative encourages students to apply their creativity to generate ideas that can be developed in mobile applications, and create mobile applications for either the BlackBerry Smartphone or the BlackBerry Playbook.

Minister of Education, the Honorable Andrew Holness, said he sees the competition as an opportunity to forge a seamless synergy between Information Communication Technology and education in public and private institutions across the island. He expressed that this is a dynamic and fun way for students to expand their creative capacities in an initiative that supports team spirit and entrepreneurism. “Today is another ground-breaking day for us at the Ministry of Education because this competition represents an exciting challenge for our students across the island. There is no doubt that students will have uncharted opportunities to be empowered and be greater critical thinkers as they take on the challenge to develop new mobile applications for the BlackBerry Smartphone.” He said.

Echoing the minister’s sentiments, Head of Digicel Business, Brian Bennett-Easy outlined that Digicel is delighted to support another initiative that leads to youth empowerment and development. “Information Communication Technology is the vane of innovation and communication and we continue to find ways to provide an avenue that creates a meaningful link between education and ICT whilst at the same time encouraging innovation and creativity among our youths — one of the key focuses of Digicel,” added Bennett-Easy.

The competition — which has categories such as education, business and finance, culture, entertainment and personal security among others – will run until Sunday, July 31, 2011 for the submission of applications and ideas. These can be uploaded to www.bbdevelopers.gov.jm.

Chaired by the Ministry of Education, the judging committee has selected panellists from public and private sector entities who will assess entries in areas such as usability, functionality, accessibility, design elements, usefulness and educational value.

The top three winning teams in each category will receive BlackBerry Smartphones from Digicel and the overall winning team will receive the Best in Show award of an allexpense-paid trip from Research In Motion to the upcoming BlackBerry Developers Conference in San Francisco in late September.

Digicel will use the overall winning BlackBerry application in all its markets as a value-added service to its BlackBerry customers.