Google, the online search behemoth has launched a website for people who need help on just about anything from photography to cooking; other categories include Home & Garden, Computers & Electronics, Health & Counseling, Nutrition & Fitness, Fashion & Beauty, Art & Music, Cooking and Education. It utilises much of Google’s existing services like Wallet and Hangouts to create an online marketplace where people can sell their service. Previously unveiled in August as a private service, Helpouts is now open to anyone and they can tap into more than 1,000 vetted providers.

Helpouts already has an Android app and is available on the Web. The courses are created by tutors who may charge for their services out of which Google takes a 20% cut As many as 1,000 experts are on Helpouts, with individuals, small and medium-sized businesses being a part of the service.

The minimum age for people using the service is 13 while 18 is the minimum age to become an expert. Google has indicated some future plans of developing an API for the service to expand its reach.

Here is the introductory video to Helpouts.

> Source: TheNextWeb

Team 11 – Young Engineer for Problem Solving, Winners Of The Innovation Camp

BlackBerry and non-governmental organisation Junior Achievement have announced the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise programme for Science, Technology and Mathematics(STEM) Innovation Camps in Nigeria.

Over 55 secondary school students from 13 public and private schools took part in the first camp which focused on business challenges in mobile technology. The concept of an Innovation camp was developed by BlackBerry and the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise.

At the STEM Innovation Camp students were asked to create an idea for a mobile app that could be used by students. The students also created sales plans in support of their mobile app to develop business skills and the winning team was chosen by a panel of judges which included BlackBerry executives.

At the end of the Innovation Camp, Team 11 Young Engineer for Problem Solving was selected to represent Nigeria in the Junior Achievement International Finals next month. They will compete with 13 other schools from around the world.

The Junior Achievement global final will take place on the 13th June 2013 and include winning teams from the UAE, Spain, Italy, India, Thailand, Argentina, China, Sweden, Mexico, Malaysia, South Africa, Nigeria, Columbia and Indonesia.

*L-R: Bolutife Ogunsola, Willie Aniebiet, and Michael Adeyeri ; winners of the $20,000 prize in the Google Apps Developer Challenge for Form+

Three University of Lagos (UNILAG) students, have won the Google Apps Developer Challenge for the Enterprise/Small Business Solutions category in sub-Saharan Africa.

The students – Bolutife Ogunsola, Michael Adeyeri and Willie Aniebiet, created the Form+ application. Form+ is an app that allows users create application forms by just dragging and dropping components. The user can create forms – such as curriculum vitae (CV) or résumé submission forms for businesses and coursework submission page for lecturers.

In August this year, student teams from the University of Lagos and University of Nigeria, put Nigeria on the map by making the finals of Google’s Online Marketing Challenge for Africa.

Emeka Afigbo, Program Manager, Google Nigeria stated: “Our expectation is that this motivates more young Nigerian developers to develop apps that change the way we live in Nigeria and Africa at large.”

The winners were rewarded with Chromebooks and $20,000. They also won a grant worth $18,000 for their school’s department.

After its Yoruba language app – aYoruba, Asa has released another afro-centric app African Folktales. African Folktakes offers a growing collection of folktales served in a manner that combines voice, graphical illustrations and text.

African Folktales has titles such as Pride Goes Before A Fall, Spider and The Giant, Why Dogs Live With Humans and Tortoise and the Shell. To get any of these titles, all you do is add them to your catalog within the app. To get new tales, they’ll be automatically downloaded to your device as soon as they are released.

Here’s a walkthrough of African Folktales. It’s available for download from the Google Play Store.

The cross-section of available titiles are shown. You touch to select any of them you wish to download

The app opens with a page showing your empty library. Click "Add Books" to move to the next step

The tortoise is about to fall from the sky. Ouch!

Here's a screenshot from Tortoise and The Shell

Tortoise and The Shell is now added. To download it, You have to tap it once more and then download

I added "Tortoise and the Shell" to my catalog.

Asa is a spin-off off Co-creation Hub’s Tech-In-Ed Hackathon. Asa runs under its parent entity Genii Games and its vision is to with a vision to capture and deliver globally African cultural contents using mobile technology. It seeks to promote the African heritage where there is lack of culturally relevant and shareable content and stimulate interest in our rich cultural heritage amongst the new generation of African kids.

African Folktales is currently only available for Android. Asa is working towards opening it up to other platforms soon. Download Here.

Semi finalists have emerged in the Google Apps Developer Challenge for 2012. Developers in six regions across the world are competing for prizes that include Chromebooks and up to $20,000. Google is specially highlighting innovations of students and female developers.

Apps were initially submitted within three categories

• Enterprise / Small Business Solutions
• Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun
• Not-for-Profit: Education / Water / Food & Hunger / Health

Nigeria is represented by three Apps at the semi finals including DoctorPlus – a non-profit online medical service aimed at leveraging on the Google Apps platform to provide the minimal infrastructure needed. FistDrive which we covered earlier, is also on the semi finals list.

At the finals, a winner will be chosen from each category. Here’s the full list of all the semi finalists from around the world

India

Education / Not for Profit / Water / Food & Hunger / Health

• BadgeIt, India
  BadgeIt is a HTML5 web application that helps event or conference organizers generate badges for their attendees
• Standard Assessment, India
  Standard Assessment is a unique tool that pulls in data from multiple data sources and allows for educators to analyze tends in the data at a variety of levels
• Localizer, India
  Localizer helps inter-state Indian migrants to settle in a new place

Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun

• Doc MineSweeper, India
  Implementation of the Minesweeper game for Google Spreadsheets
• CloudPosta, India
  CloudPosta acts as a discussion and information site by letting the users share their knowledge easily
• FaceShow, India
  Face-Show is an application which is used to tell the moods of the persons from your Gmail emails
• GA!ert, India
  GA!ert – an instant Gmail reminder

Latin America

Enterprise / Small Business Solutions

• Google Drive Graphic Explorer, Mexico
  Google Drive Graphic Explorer is a simple interface that lets you manage all your files and shared files in a single view
• SMG, Brazil
  Smart Mail-merge for Google is a Google Apps Script web-app that allows any Google user to send bulk emails performing mail-merge with data stored on various Google products, namely: Google Spreadsheets, Google Fusion Tables and Google Contacts
• Cloud Pivot, Colombia
  “Cloud Pivot” is an application OLAP business intelligence tool

Education / Not for Profit / Water / Food & Hunger / Health

• I’m Volunteer Network, Dominican Republic
  It is an application for reporting environmental problems and matching them to volunteers
• MyDataPro, Chile
  MyDataPro is a convenient fast paced searching tool of global indicators and concerning statistical data from a broad range of fields

Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun

• GTD Easy Task, Brazil
  This is a third party GTD – Getting Things Done tool for Google apps
• IC3D World Map Editor, Brazil
  A tool to create 3D maps for games, saving JSON files that can be used in game development

Middle East and North Africa

Education / Not for Profit / Water / Food & Hunger / Health

• LocalEDU, Morocco
  LocalEDU is a web application which aims to make it easier and more fun for students, professors, school staff and ministry of education staff to collaborate to produce a better learning environment
• Signal Flow Graph Solver, Egypt
  Online tool for solving signal flow graphs
• We-Cloud, Algeria
  We-Cloud is a project management platform based in the cloud that facilitates coordination between the different members of the project team

Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun

• Android Cloud Note, Egypt
  Android Application that capture images then upload it to Drive with ocr enabled so it can work as a scanner that convert images , books & papers into an editable text
• Drivanizer, Egypt
  It’s a tool that let you perform some quick tasks on your Google Drive files

South East Asia

Enterprise / Small Business Solutions

• CollabSpot Notetaker, Philippines
  The CollabSpot Notetaker allows you to collaboratively create tasks and document links during a Google+ Hangouts session
• Riverpark Leaf, Thailand
  Riverpark Leaf is web-based leave request application

Education / Not for Profit / Water / Food & Hunger / Health

• myThesis, Indonesia
  App that helps students track their process when writing their thesis
• FAILRAIL.sg, Singapore
  FAILRAIL.sg is a data visualization of train service disruptions in Singapore

Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun

• Events KIT, Philippines
  Events KIT is an app to handle events, meetings or usual meet-ups.
• tsksticker, Philippines
  Create your art/comic strips/animations using drag and drop stickers
• CleverNote, Philippines
  Note taking app for Google Drive

Sub-Saharan Africa

Enterprise / Small Business Solutions

• DocTracker, Uganda
  DocTracker manages incoming and outgoing office document records.
• NomiaPro, Ghana
  NomiaPro is a web application that will help businesses organize all their conferences delegates
• Form+, Nigeria
  This application brings the power of Google Drive to forms.

Education / Not for Profit / Water / Food & Hunger / Health

• Daktari, Uganda
  Daktari is a an application that helps one, specifically patients communicate easily with doctors
• Open Docs Hub, Côte d’Ivoire
  The Open Docs Hub is a document sharing open source platform that leverages the power of Google Drive
• Daro, Kenya
  Daro, swahili slang for ‘class’, is a simple app for managing a class.
• DoctorPlus, Nigeria
  DoctorPlus is a non-profit online medical service aimed at leveraging the on the Google Apps platform to provide the minimal infrastructure needed
• Prep-hub, South Africa
  Prep-hub is a web application that hosts past examination and test papers for students and encourages collaboration between them as they prepare for examinations and/or tests
• Open Drive, Togo
  Open Drive is a collective encyclopedia project based on Google Drive public files and on the crowd sharing, crowd sourcing and crowd-solving principles
• Realinx, South Africa
  Realinx is an easy way to organise information according their relationships.
• QuizerApp, Kenya
  An app intended to make classroom revision easier and fun, both for the lecturers (tutors) and the students.
• Identichip, South Africa
  Service that allows users to search for information about a tag / microchip

Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun

• Tunebanda, Kenya
  Tunebanda is a easy-to-use music player application for Google Drive
• I-Organize, Cameroon
  I-Organize is a tool that could be used to semantically reorganize the files of your drive by categories.
• Fist Drive, Zambia
  Fist Drive is a mobile, cloud file sharing application for Google Drive
• Integrated Project Manager, Kenya
  A task manager implemented as a chrome extension and integrates with Google Tasks and Google Calendar
• Dextop, Uganda
  Dextop is a desktop-like portal to your cloud-based applications. A lightweight virtual desktop
• Tokelezea, Kenya
  Tokelezea is a social event check in and management application
• BabiEvents, Cote D’ivoire
  BabiEvents is a web app that allows to know the events that take place in Cote D’Ivoire – where and when
• Remindme, Uganda
  Location based reminder
• Ludo Game, Nigeria
  Ludo Game is an online multiplayer ludo board game

United States, Europe and the Rest of the World

Enterprise / Small Business Solutions

• Otomofis Mobile Dynamic Business Management, Turkey
  Otomofis is a financial and inventory management tool for small and medium enterprises
• Log Drive, United Kingdom
  Log Drive lets developers log strings to a Google Drive spreadsheet and tries to make the process as simple and fast as possible
• ProMailr, France
  ProMailr is an innovative professional layer on top of Google Apps
• FiT Issue Tracker, Germany
  FiT is bug/feature request submission, reporting, and tracking system based on Google Apps Script, Google Spreadsheets, Google Sites, and the Google Visualization API
• Ultradox, Germany
  Ultradox allows you to generate nice documents from powerful templates
• Vidroid Teamwork, Ukraine
  Vidroid Teamwork(VT) is a project management and collaboration tool developed using Google Services
• GDynamic Document, France
  GDynamic Document allows users to create dynamic document from a spreadsheet datasource
• Begroting Opleidingen, Netherlands
  Railway maintenance App
• MarkIt Web Publisher, United States
  MarkIt Web Publisher is an exciting application for publishing Markdown content, resident within Google Drive, to the web
• Simple Invoicing, United States
  Simple Invoicing collects the required information; invoices are automatically generated and stored in your Google Drive

Social / Personal Productivity / Games / Fun

• MIDI 2 Mp3, Sweden
  MIDI 2 Mp3 is a conversion tool for the filetypes MID/MIDI which converts these files to Mp3
• Deedle, Ukraine
  Deedle – is a unique social project which encourage people to share things they have done
• Gantt Chart Generator, United States
  Generates Gantt Chart from Google Spreadsheet
• Neutron Drive, United States
  Neutron Drive is a code editor for Google Drive
• HTML5 Photo Viewer, United States
  This application is a HTML5 Photo Viewer with support for multi-touch gestures

DocScan

If I could describe this app in one word, it’d be “lifesaver.” This app turns your iPhone into a scanner, literally. Just take a picture of a document and it auto-detects it for you or you can do that yourself; select if you want it in black and white or keep it that way and save as a PDF, JPEG or ZIP file. Simple as that, you can scan multiple pages into one document as well which makes sharing easier. It supports sharing to DropBox, iBooks, Google Drive and a bunch of other services.

Comes in handy when you haven’t gotten your textbooks yet and your professor already gave you 20 pages of reading to do. I’ll give you a tip, if your document isn’t too bulky, send it to Google Drive and you can extract the text instead of having to copy it down word for word. You can get the app here.

ImageToText

This app kind of supplements DocScan, which could explain why I came across them both at the same time. Take a picture of a document with text and email it to yourself. Voila! You have the text in an email to do what you want with it. No, this will not work with your handwriting as it already gets minor errors with regular text.

Comes in handy when you really don’t feel like retyping the long question you have to answer. You can get this app here.

iProcrastinate

What better name for a time management app, no? This app is for those of us who are guilty of procrastination. You can sort tasks by subject and it does everything a calendar does, You can add priority to tasks, star the super important ones and add a repeat schedule to those that need one. Another interesting feature is you can add steps to tasks. That way it keeps you on track with what you need to be doing as you check off the steps of a huge task. It’s available for Mac primarily for free but comes with one for the iPhone for 99 cents. That way, you can add and sync tasks on-the-go.

Grades 2

Last semester, I got a little panicky about what my grades would be. You know when you’re just so unsure how good you did and you have no idea? I especially hate those classes that have like a 30 percent participation grade, You’ve done good on your tests but you don’t know how much participation gets you an A grade. This is where this app comes in. You know when you get your syllabus and it has a breakdown of what weight each test, assignment and exam carries? You put that information in this app, put in your desired grade, and it tells you what you need to get in each one to get that grade. As you update it with what you’re getting, it will as well. Not that it’s good to fail, but that way, you know if you can afford to not study for something at no risk or if you can’t. It helps A LOT. It also helps you keep track of your GPA, as it tells you what it could be if you got your target grade for every class. Get it here.

Dropbox

I can’t stress how essential Dropbox is. This is what I wrote last year:

“Dropbox is basically the cloud drive for the everyday person. It’s like having a 2GB flash drive wherever you go. Ever had one of those days where you type up something and have to email it to yourself? Dropbox eliminates all that stress. You install it on your computer where it’s its own folder synced online, so if you’re in a rush just drag and drop to the folder and you can access it from your iPhone and any other computer. You can even create a link to the file from your iPhone to make it even more accessible. You can also upgrade if you need more space. Perfect for the procrastinator!

You can get the app on your iPhone and it’s also available for Android.”

That all still stands. I would have said Google Drive for iOS, but they got it completely wrong by denying iPhone users the ability to create and edit documents which makes the app pointless. They’re both really good services, I don’t think one outdoes the other.

That’s my list of apps to get you super productive this school year. Let us know if you know of any apps you think should have made this list, someone might need it. Happy school year!

As part of the initiatives to generate employment and drive ICT entrepreneurial development in Nigeria, the Ministry of Communication Technology in conjunction with Intel Corporation is calling on software developers and entrepreneurs to participate in a 2 week Software Competition to submit a demo/beta web-based solution for a Student PC Ownership Program. Please read the instruction below.

Click here to download the Functional Requirement Specifications Document for the competition.

Below are instructions for the competition

Timeline:

04 – 07 September: One week for clarification of enquiries / questions from competitors. Send comments / enquiries / questions to[email protected]

10 – 21 September: Development of demo

24 September: Submit the URL through which the demo can be accessed to [email protected] by 9 a.m. of same day

25 September: Assessment and evaluation of all solutions submitted through online URLs. Winner will be contacted after thorough analysis.

More 

1.       No physical copy or CD of the solution shall be assessed. Federal Ministry of Communication Technology (FMCT) and Intel Corporation reserves the right to select or reject any solution submitted. As such, FMCT and Intel are not under obligation to patronize any competitor at all cost.

2.       By participating in this competition, the competitors agree to releasing their intellectual property used in building the demo and as such FMCT and Intel is not liable to any damage associated with the use of the IP by third party.

3.       By participating in this competition, the competitors agree that FMCT or any of its agencies and Intel is free to assess, evaluate and utilize its software to advance the course of the Student PC Ownership Program.

4.       FMCT and Intel will jointly evaluate the submitted solutions at the specified URLs to select the best and fit-for-purpose Web solution.

5.       The winner shall receive a cash award of N1,500,000.00 for the best solution. This award will also cover the completion of the solution for the Student PC Ownership Program. Therefore on selection of the winning solution, the winner will be required to complete the solution based on additional requirements that may be stipulated by FMCT or its agencies and Intel.

6.       However, the award cost will exclude the hosting and other infrastructure cost that may be required for full development and operationalization of the solution for the intended Program.

7.       FMCT and Intel shall bear the cost for the hosting and other infrastructure or pay the winner for this infrastructure.

8.       The year-in, year-out maintenance and support of the solution shall be the sole responsibilities of the winner.

9.       While the intellectual property of the solution will be jointly owned by FMCT and the winner, the proprietary ownership of the business data on the solution shall belong to FMCT or its agency responsible for ICT development.

10.   A Service Contract Agreement, Service Level Agreement and Source Code Escrow Agreement shall be signed between FMCT or its agency and the winner to guarantee the operations of the solution year-in, year-out.

It’s great to see that the ICT Ministry is working with companies to support and fund entrepreneurs. Don’t forget to abide by all the rules and guidelines above. Goodluck

Google Nigeria has announced an extension of its Google Apps Supporting Programs (GASP) to the University of Ibadan. The GASP initiative is to help increase usage of the internet and Google Apps in Sub-Saharan universities.

Now that GASP is on the University of Ibadan’s campus, students get access to a lifetime email address with the extension stu.ui.edu.ng and up to 25GB of cloud storage space. Students also get access to the full Google Apps for Education suite which includes Email, Calendar, Groups, Docs and Sites. The aim is to increase productivity within the student body and between students and academic staff.

Ego Obi, Google’s Program Manager for Sub-Saharan africa said “‘We want to get more and more Nigerians users online by improving access to the Internet and helping universities like University of Ibadan to take advantage of the Internets many opportunities aligning with its vision to be a world class institution for academic excellence.’”

Google Apps for Education has been deployed in over 100 universities across Sub-Saharan Africa including South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya and Uganda.

If you’re interested in adding your university to the GASP list, go here.

In the last year, we’ve seen Google push usage of its product by delivering special suites of products to universities and businesses. Get Nigerian Businesses Online, another initiative of Google recently hit the 25,000 websites mark.

We’ve got a few readers at the University of Ibadan, how do you guys feel about Google’s services?

Teams from the University of Lagos and University of Ibadan have emerged finalists in the 2012 of Google’s annual Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC)

About 11,000 students from 86 countries/territories participated in the competition.

GOMC is a global competition established to help prepare students studying advertising, e-commerce, marketing communication, managemement information systems, marketing or new media technologies in the area of online marketing.

Here’s a list of the students and lecturers whose teams made it to the Finalist and Semi-Finalist categories:

Finalists team from Africa:

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Team: Akomolafe Oladeji (Lecturer), Oladipo Oluwaseyi, Olukayode Didunoluwa Olamide, Oyeside Olalekan, Alagbe Olarenwaju, and Aiyelari Temilolorun

Semi-Finalists teams from Africa:

University of Lagos, Nigeria

Team: Adeyanju Olusiji Ayoade (Lecturer), Longe Olubusayo Anuoluwapo, Obanor Chukwuwezam, Babalola Hisa, Abdussalam Mariam Oluwakemi, and Fadeyi Ayoola Idris

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Team 1: Akomolafe Oladeji (Lecturer), Jedidiah Ogwumike, John Itebu, Basima Williams, Aminat Elekuru, Steven Ogah, and Mariam Yinus

Team 2: Akomolafe Oladeji (Lecturer), Oni Samson, Abebe Grace Angelica, Olatunji Ayodabo, Adepoju Emmanuel, Olaoye Oluwafemi Emmanuel, and Ajibade Idris Adeshina

Team 3: Akomolafe Oladeji (Lecturer), Moshood Temitope Omoteleola, Faniyi Olarotimi, Ajegbomogun Peter, Adediji Obitayo, Udenewu Kingsley, and Muraina Atinuke

Team 4: Akomolafe Oladeji (Lecturer), Olufohunsi Tolulope, Dada Boluwatife, Okpara Bobby, Okusanya Tobi, Kuyinu Tobiloba, and Adekunle Idowu

All you’ve got to do is tap the icon, take the picture and highlight the text you wish to translate.

The image translate featue is currently available to devices that run at least Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The update also includes the ability to specify certain dialects for voice translation, instant translation as soon as you type and an improvement in translating multiple Japanese characters.

Are you travelling to a foreign country soon? You’ll love to get this on your Android device.

Source: Android Central