Sathathara Gurunnanse of Facebook is now on AppZone!

We Hirantha Weerarthna, Sachith Senarath and Aloka Munasinghe are 3rd year undergraduates of UCSC. We are pleased to go live on AppZone with our second app "Saththara". This is the mobile version of well known "Saththara Gurunnanse" of facebook. Therefore we would like to take this opportunity to thank the developer of the application "Saththara Gurunnanse" on Facebook who is a 1st year student of UCSC.

As Saththara Gurunnanse brought a smile to every one who asked saththara from him we thought that we can reach his fans via mobile. Through this app users can ask saththara from Saththara Gurunnanse and get funny predictions from him. We update our database once a month and we hope to entertain our customers  with this application. 

Users can ask "saththara" by sending <sat><space><CustomerName> to 4499.

"mCrazies" will be soon on AppZone to cater the needs of all movie crazies out there!

We, Malitha VIraj Mathugama and Madusanka Prasad Mathugama are 4th year undergraduates in University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC). "mCrazies" is the first application we developed as a team based application.

This application provides information about on going movies in famous theaters. In some urgent situations browsing through the internet to get information on the on going movies in theaters becomes so irritative. But getting those information by sending a simple SMS sounds more easier. You don't have to spend time surfing the internet or calling friends to get these information anymore! Just type 

mcraz<space><name of theater 1><space><name of theater 2> and send to 4499 from your Etisalat phone.

Here, name of theater 2 is optional. If user wants to get details of on going movies in more than one theater, then it is possible to type several theater names by leaving a <space> in between each theater name. User will get a SMS in return with the corresponding results for his SMS.

Buy developing these applications we gain knowledge and experiences on new technologies. Any developer would like to feel the excitement when there applications are being used by the general public. Not only that, the recognition and the revenue you get will make you an well known entrepreneur among the other developers. There are untouched problems which we all need a solution to make our lives easier. Its only a matter of thinking about those unsolved problems and coming up with an easy way to solve them. Developers have been provided with all the required materials such as APIs, sample applications, guide lines and support by the AppZone Team. We have the knowledge on programming languages. So what is needed is to put these two together to develop a well demanded application which has a good business logic behind it. That's how both of us came up with the idea about "mCrazies" app which is also a very simple solution to cater the people who are  always on alert about the movies.

MyMed comes to AppZone from an undergraduate of UCSC

I am Malith VIraj Mathugama, currently a 4th year undergraduate in University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC). 

My application "MyMed"on AppZone is to obtain details about well known doctors private consultation. The application provides relevant information about a particular doctor's private visiting hospital name, time, relevant hospital's hotline number and the charge for the doctor. 

To get the service type mymed<space><1st doctor's name><space><2nd doctor's name> and send to 4499

The 2nd doctor's name is optional, user can type one or many doctors names in single message and retrieve details according to the message sent.

By developing this application I gained experience of working with 3rd party software platforms and integration of individual application to a 3rd party simulator. Not only that but I also gathered an extension knowledge about execution and data structural hierarchy in server side. AppZone team provided me all the guidelines to overcome challenges I had to face during the time I was implementing my application. They provided me contact numbers to share my problems and get involve relavent authorized persons to slove them in an efficient manner. Finally they always kept asking the status of the application and that really motivated me to complete this app. The guidance they provided made me easier to reach my destination.

The way the apps on AppZone are being promoted and the prizes they are ready to give out for the best applications of the competition made me focus on this development. 

Currently there are many good applications on the AppZone Appstore. In my point of view, the idea or the concept is the most significant here rather than the development process, because these apps are basically based on business aspect. It is very important to have the attractiveness and a demand for your app. In order to gain an user satisfaction, application must address a simple solution for a existing unsolved (may be solved partially but not in an efficient way for many mobile users). Such kind of concepts are out there. You only have to think a bit in the user's perspective. 

As a user and a developer I'm very glad to see such apps are available on AppZone and they are ready to make the, available. My app is also a very simple solution for e-chanelling since e-chanelling concept needs internet access. This provides a solution for those who do not have access to the internet. Mobile world always make things possible in the easiest way. Be a part of those who provides a solution and a better service for the mobile users. 

Who's on their way to win the iPad?? Check out the latest stats....

We have almost reached the competition deadline....01st of January 2011.

Hurry up guys....Get on board and try to make your university be proud of you! 

Register and develop today! : http://www.hsenidmobile.com/appzone/event/competition_register

Feel the exhilaration with AppZone | www.appzone.lk | #141#

"Stock Exchange" another ground braking application developed by a set of undergraduates in UCSC

We, Hirantha Weerarthna, Sachith Senarath and Aloka Munasinghe are undergraduates of University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC). “Stock Exchange” is the first application we developed for the AppZone Mobile Application Competition to cater to its users with the latest updates of the share market.  

The share prices change very often and the share holders need to sell their shares when there is an incline in their company share values. Therefore they would need to be on alert about the changes happen in the share prices. By using this application users can get the updates of the share market prices simply without loging into the (Colombo Stock Exchange) CSE website or contacting them.

We have developed this application in a very user friendly manner where users can get the information by sending a simple SMS to 4499.

They only have to type shares<space><company ID> and send it to 4499.

By developing this application we were able to gain more knowledge on an area which we had no experience before. At first we thought it would be hard to develop a SMS based application as we were new to that. But it was fun to develop it after understanding the logic behind it properly.  Actually the whole process of developing the app was a new experience to us. Indeed we came across some difficulties specially when simulating the app. But the support materials they have provided in the AppZone.lk site were fair enough for us to get on board.  We watched the videos on AppZone.lk and it was a huge support to clarify the problems we had. Anyone who is new to developing apps can get a good knowledge by simply referring those videos. It is no rocket science at all, if you have the will and a good business logic which will catch up by the customers.

"IQ Challenge" goes live on AppZone by Empowering your IQ…

I am K.H.Suranga Pathmakumara.I am an undergraduate of Electronics and Telecommunication Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa and currently studying at level 3. As we got to know about the AppZone Mobile Application Competition I came up with an idea to create an app which is a SMS quiz. 

The key perspective of my app “IQ Challenge” is to provide both fun and knowledge to the customers and in the meanwhile to get an idea about their IQ level. This is an subscription based application where user have to register. No registration charges but SMS charges will be applied.

Procedure to play the game

1)      Type “reg<space>qz” and send and send to 4499 for  registration

Then you will get all the instructions of the game and your first question. With the question most probably you will get 4 answers. You have to give the most appropriate answer by its number.

2)      Send your answers in the following format

“qz<space>ans<space><your answer number>” to 4499

3)      Thereafter you will get a message whether your answer is correct or incorrect. And followed by another message which will give you the next question. If you give the correct answer you will add 10 points to your account.

4)      From level 20 to 26 (stage 2) we will not automatically send questions one after another. Customer has to get a question manually. To get a question type a message in following format “qz<space>get”and send to 4499. Then you will receive a question again which you have to send the answer within 5 minutes. Otherwise even though   you have given the correct answer it will not be considered as a valid answer.

5)     If you want to retry for a question type “qz<space>retry” and send to 4499. Then you will get a new question. Remember that total number of questions that you can try is 150. For stage 2 there will be only 30 questions to try.

6)  End of the month the points you have collected for your correct answers will be counted and the winners will be selected to reward with the gifts.

Developing Apps with Appzone

After you understand the basic idea of the process behind your application it is simple to develop your app. If you have a sound programming knowledge, then that’s it. You can download the mchoice aventura simulator and test your app with that.

Motivation to develop Apps

Programming is one of my interests. The advantage for me by developing this application is I got a good experience about web services and about the applications that runs on aventura platform. Also I should mention about the earning potential that a developer can have by developing apps.Of course you can make your own money by developing applications with Appzone.

My thoughts to the other developers

My thought to other students and whoever at the beginning of programming is

“Appzone is giving you a free opportunity to develop your programming skills for the first time in Sri Lanka.So why don’t you take the advantage? And of course you can make your own money on the way.” 

Etisalat & hSenid Mobile announce the launch of AppZone mobile application store The first Telco applications store in Sri Lanka

Etisalat and hSenid Mobile announced the commercialization of their breakthrough Mobile Application Eco-System 'AppZone,' enabling all Etisalat users to download applications that are useful and important for them in day-to-day information sourcing & entertainment. The AppZone portal that was launched in June initially to local developers to start developing mobile phone applications, is now accessible for commercial purposes. Customers can now dial #141# or visit www.appzone.lk to download mobile applications ranging from train schedules, horoscope predictions, games, sports updates or anything else at the click of a key. There is a comprehensive listing of applications and the most significant factor is all these have been developed by local technocrats to suit local requirements.

Etisalat CEO Dumindra Ratnayake expressing his delight on succeeding in introducing a breakthrough  mobile value adding service in Sri Lanka said, “what commenced as a pilot project in application development has today become a general service to Etisalat customers. AppZone will enable our customers to access an array of applications, be it searching for bus routes , checking for rahu kalaya or checking for a cab listing.” Ratnayake further stated that since there is very highly evolved techno-culture woven around the mobile phone, it was important that service providers introduce more and more value added services to their customers. “In order to substantiate the entrepreneurial angle of this project we will be sharing 70% of revenue  with respective application developers” added Ratnayake.    

AppZone is based on the revolutionary Cloud Telco Application Portal (Cloud TAP) developed by hSenid Mobile based on open standards & technologies, end to end service creation and rapid time to market Telco Applications.  The state of the art Telco developer portal helps to create opportunities from simple to enterprise applications that can be developed with minimum effort.”  Mr. Dinesh Saparamadu, CEO, hSenid Mobile is pleased with the responses they have received for the competition. “AppZone is Sri Lanka's first ever Telco App Store. We believe this is the beginning of taking our developers to a global Telco application platform powered by hSenid Mobile," Saparamadu stated further.

Asanka Gayan, a young technocrat from the University of Peradeniya who has developed an SMS based application enabling users to access island wide train time-route schedules as per the Railway department said, “once the idea was in place, the execution was immensely simple. All I had to do was gather the technical background from the online AppZone forum and follow instructions. I was motivated by the challenge of developing an application as well as the revenue incentive! I have no doubt that this experience will be a stepping stone for my future ambition of making it big in the industry.”

The inter-university competition is still on and the grand winner will receive an Apple i-pad from the organizers. Endorsing the success of this breakthrough initiative, Director University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), Prof. Gihan Wickramanayake said, "AppZone covers a wide rage of applications from business to pleasure. Creation of innovative mobile applications is a business opportunity for our undergraduates."

Commenting on the entrepreneurial angle of this project Dr. Koliya Pulasinghe , Dean Academic Affairs, Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT),     “The benefits that student community can reap from this initiative are two folds. This initiative creates an environment where students can try out their technical, entrepreneurial, and soft skills which are essential underpinnings of future graduates. The other is, ownership of the product remains with developers after the competition and with that recognition they can start-up businesses which create more opportunities for their community.” 

Dr Kapila Ponnamperuma, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya,  is in the view that AppZone provides an ideal and hassle free platform for students to effortlessly venture into mobile application development. He said, “I hope that this would lead to a future brand of young entrepreneurs who could look beyond traditional and local boundaries and explore the global marketplace with confidence.” Commenting on the changing employment dynamics of the modern era, Ms. Vishaka Nanayakkara Head - Department of Computer Science & Engineering - University of Moratuwa
said, “In our quest to make today's graduates the job creators and not job seekers initiatives like Appzone are very helpful as it would give the young undergraduates an opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills and enhance their knowledge and skills in software development. An inter-university competition would give all Sri Lankan undergraduates and opportunity to compete and showcase their talent”
Discussing the multi-faceted advantages of this competition, Mr. Dinuka Kahandage, Operations Manager for Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology said,“This will be a great opportunity for  the youth to kick start their career path. Come up with your own application, creative ideas and earn some income at the end of the month. It is not only the income that you will get out of it… it is the recognition what is more important, since you could become recognized locally and globally based on the success of your application in future”

Encouraged by the success of the inter-university competition, Etisalat & hSenid has now opened this competition to the technology savvy general public as well. Application developers will have to visit the Etisalat Mobile App Forum (www.appzone.lk) powered by hSenid Mobile, use the development kits provided to develop application, test it with the simulators provided and submit it for approval and commercialization. Apart from earning a significant portion of the revenue earned,  the developer will also get the chance to share the application nationally and internationally there by having the chance to build a reputation for himself . 

Etisalat & hSenid Mobile announce the launch of AppZone mobile application store The first Telco applications store in Sri Lanka

Etisalat and hSenid Mobile announce the commercialization of their breakthrough Mobile Application Eco-System 'AppZone,' enabling all Etisalat users to download applications that are useful and important for them in day-to-day information sourcing & entertainment. 

Today at At Galle Face Hotel,

Grand Ballroom

Colombo

VISIT: WWW.APPZONE.LK

A simple Java application in 15 minutes

Sri Lanka schools’ sports update – Sri Lankans’ Loyalty towards their schools taken to another level

Sri Lankan culture is carved with patriotism. Unlike in any other part of the world, Sri Lankans’ loyalty towards their alma mater is remarkable. Sri Lankans spend quite a lot of time in admiring, gossiping, benchmarking and of course the passionate banter involved between rival schools. But unfortunately this loyalty lacks in persistence in terms of awareness & the instant availability of information. 

As a result Cheerurteam.com was formulated to cater to the busy individuals who love their alma mater and eager to get updates of the latest happenings at schools and in the school sports arena.

This ‘school’ application will update the subscriber with the latest sports scores of their respective schools. Users can subscribe to the application by their school name or by any particular sport or all schools and all sports, according to their preferences. Another fantastic feature is; if a subscriber wants to get a match update of other schools, the request can be treated on demand. Eg: If a user has subscribed to Ananda College and wants to know what happened at the Royal-Thomian big match; he will just simply have to send an on demand text to 4499 on Etisalat.

Developing on AppZone is easy as developing other applications. If someone has prior experience in working on APIs and iPhone or Facebook applications, it will merely take a few hours to develop an application on AppZone. We used PHP to develop this application.

School Match days consist of 10 matches taking place in various sports. So, if we are to start sending all match results of all schools to subscribers, it could put them off as most of it are irrelevant. As most people are interested only in his or her school and not all the schools in the country. Therefore we needed appropriate technology to filter the data before sending to the subscribers. In fact, we approached other mobile service operators, but they were not interested in moving forward with the initiative forcing us to halt the idea at the time

Then comes AppZone. This is a perfect platform for our requirements. We are thrilled to develop applications and publish them on AppZone. Another fabulous opportunity is that Etisalat offers us a big piece of cake for the developers where as other established operators were to keep a big piece for themselves.

This is a new revolution in the mobile industry. Now it’s our duty to support this initiative. Forget about how much we will make but look at how we can help them to grow. Every application developed by each of us will motivate them and help them to build more sophisticated products to the market, whereas, it helps you and the society at large.

Visit: AppZone.lk 

Mobile App Revolution

Check out the apps on AppZone app store!!!

AppZone Proudly Presents over 50 Applications in Sri Lanka's First Ever Telco App Store!!

AppZone's ultimate goal is to open up a new breed of entrepreneurs amongst local application developers  and specially the university students, enhancing their presence in the region. Its a pleasure to say that Etisalat together with hSenid Mobile have achieved it with a great effort. University students now have the opportunity to step in to their career path to be an innovative entrepreneur while doing their studies. 70% of the applications that are currently available in our app store were developed by the students of private and government universities. 

We are proud to say that AppZone has brought up a young set of entrepreneurs for our Mother Lanka,  with the intention of promoting local mobile application developers by opening the door to anyone interested in that sphere. We have created a change in the mobile application industry in Sri Lanka  by giving making the environment for the university students to go beyond the few professional who have dominated the sphere thus far.

We have set up the stage for all emerging Sri Lankan mobile software developers to experience rapid development and commercialization of their mobile applications. Freelancers, industry professionals and software development companies are also welcomed to be a part of our developer community and get the maximum use of this opportunity. 

This is just the start of the Sri Lankan Mobile App Revolution. Way to go with AppZone Developer Community. Check out some of the apps that are available in the AppZone App Store!

What is AppZone?

"Daily Horoscope" is a part of Sri Lanka's biggest App Revolution!

I’m Navin Dhananshan, a second year software engineering undergraduate studying at Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT). When I got to know about AppZone, which is launched by Etisalat together with hSenid Mobile, I was very interested and eager to put my own ideas into practice. That was when I came up with “Daily Horoscope”.

“Daily Horoscope” is a SMS based application where the registered Etisalat users will be provided with their daily horoscope depending on their zodiac sign. The horoscope is provided by one of the well known astrologist in Sri Lanka. I found that such an application would be very helpful for anyone in order to get a snapshot how the day ahead would be like.

AppZone is targeted towards the university students. There were four workshops held at APIIT which were presented by the AppZone team.

The simulator and API given by the AppZone to develop applications made it easy to put my application on live because the API totally handles the outgoing and incoming SMSs so that we only need to invoke some methods. The server is provided with 1 GB space with no charges, so that we do not need to spend extra money on putting the application live. The hSenid mobile forum also helped me a lot whenever I came across doubts and to overcome them. Apart from the forum the hSenid developers also helped me in many other ways.

Though the money factor was very convincing and motivating, the major reason for me to develop my application was the pride and self satisfaction that I would gain to see my application being used by people.

I would say AppZone is the ideal way to be an entrepreneur, because AppZone can totally change your life if you have a great idea. I would like to invite all the developers especially university students to take this as an opportunity and try to take the maximum out of this.

Register for AppZone Mobile Applicatition Competition today and stand a chance to win an iPad. They are giving this opportunity specially for the university students.

Who's on their way to win the iPad??

Analyze the statistics....and look who's on the track....!!

Get on board...start developing applications...and stand a chance to win an iPad!!

AppZone Mobile Application Competition has extended the dead line to 28th of November!

In order to get qualified for the Intra- University Competition your university has to come up with at least 7 apps.

Register Now!!

UniverSL Group in Appzone app revolution

UniverSL Group is formed by three undergraduates of the University of Peradeniya, faculty of Science. Three of us; Roshan Gunathilake, Namal Wanninanyake and Devmal Nilanka Handapangoda are also work with UniverSL Software http://www.universlsoftware.com/ as web developers and graphic designers.

We had the interest in developing mobile applications as well. But we never thought we would develop Telco applications such as the ones based on SMS because of the difficulties in finding servers and lack of technical resources. But then we came across AppZone which was launched by Etisalat together with hSenid Mobile. We were able to participate in their first introductory workshop at the 1^st mBillionth South Asian Conference and Workshop in June on Mobile Content and Application Development for which both Etisalat and hSenid Mobile are strategic partners. There they introduced the Telco Applications Platform with a state of the art Telco Developer Portal which includes various resources such as simulators etc to develop messaging services very easily.

We were quite interested in developing an app and hosting it in the Platform. So we started developing an application and named it as COLOMBO GUIDE, which provides a complete set of information of about 200 important places in Colombo which not only includes their addresses and telephone numbers but also the bus routes to follow. 

We attended all the sessions they conducted and worked with them to make it this success. The AppZone team was always ready to lend us their helping hand whenever we had issues. While we were in the process of developing our app they announced the AppZone Mobile Application Competition. It was a great incentive for us to submit our application and participate in the competition.

The boost we got by developing and going live on AppZone with our first app made us move into developing even more applications. With the dedication and assistance given by the AppZone team we found it easy to work on the Developer Portal and the SDP Simulator. The implementation of the app is almost nothing if you have the right concept. Coming up with a cool concept which is highly demanded by Sri Lankan citizens is all what you need. 

If Etisalat and hSenid Mobile didn’t set the stage for us to develop, go live and feel the excitement of this revolution, these concepts will remain as just concepts forever. We would like to thank Etisalat and hSenid Mobile for their excellent commitment during this period conducting several extremely useful developer sessions.

Fellow Developers don’t hesitate to face challenges and experience new things…so come and be a part of the app revolution. Feel the exhilaration with AppZone!

Roshan Gunathilake

Namal Wanninanyake

Visit: http://apps.appzone.lk/

"Train Traveler" just went live on AppZone.lk

I’m Ishara Asanka an undergraduate of University of Peradeniya-faculty of Science. Coming across the opportunity of AppZone I came up with the simple idea to develop a SMS based application which is useful for the people who travel by train and I named it as "Train Traveler". Simply this application allows the users to get the train details/departure and arrival time of the trains based on their travel. 

AppZone is specifically targeting on the university students who are doing software development. They conduct developer sessions almost all the universities island wide. That’s how I came across this immense opportunity. AppZone Team came to University of Peradeniya and conducted a developer workshop and couple of lab sessions for the students of Science and Engineering faculties.

Their explanation on the value/the market potential for the SMS based application in Sri Lanka and the revenue sharing aspects motivated me to come on board and develop an application. Even though there were some minor difficulties initially the user guides and sample applications that are provided in AppZone.lk site made them all clarified for me to go forward. The assistance and the guidance given by AppZone team by conducting lab and focus session were really helpful for us to proceed without getting stuck at any point.

AppZone Team is willing to give us hand in every possible way. They have a developer forum which plays a big role. You don’t have to be a professional developer to build up a small SMS based application besides Aventura Platform takes care of all the backstage activities. You only have to have a little knowledge in programming and the interest to develop.  I must also mention that the AppZone is a great opportunity for all the Sri Lankan university students who are doing development provided by hSenid Mobile and Etisalat.

As an undergraduate I would like to tell all the other university students to get the maximum use of this opportunity. Consider this a lifetime investment. Isn’t it great being a university student and to get a decent amount of cash at the end of the month by doing nothing? Think for a minute and come up with a cool idea..and make the investment!

Visit: AppZone.lk / http://apps.appzone.lk

"mPoll" and "Yalu", Two cool apps on appzone developed by a bunch of students of University of Kelaniya

 I'm Arunoda Susiripala, lead developer behind the “mPoll” and “Yalu” projects. We are a group of students from University of Kelaniya following the degree in Management and Information Technology (MIT). Myself and the other groups members; Tharaka Wanigasekara, Prasad Hewage, Chinthaka Senanayaka, Ranga Madushanka and Tharaka Ranwatta worked hard together to make this project a success.

mPoll: is a mobile polling/voting platform which runs on "etisalat" mobile network in Sri Lanka. Simply, mPoll allows you to run a SMS based voting system which is heavily used in the reality shows these days. And it includes a state of the art web application (http://mpoll.biz ) which allows moderators to run and monitor polls without any hassle. Meanwhile it allows any "etisalat" subscriber to participate with any poll as they normally do with those reality shows.

Yalu: is a new and user friendly chat application where you can completely focus on chatting while it'll automatically match a partner to you. Yalu comes with a simple registration process; no nickname, age or gender required. Just say "hi" and you'll get a partner to chat. If you done with him/her you can either select another one or say "bye" to yalu.

All you’ve got to do is;

• First register with yalu - send "REG yl" to 4499 
• Then - send "yl hi" to 4499 you'll discover what to do next. 
• Anytime you need a help - send "yl help"

mPoll and Yalu were just two ideas in our minds and it became a reality because of AppZone.lk (mChocie Aventura Platform) which is a great invention of hSenid Mobile Solutions. It allows us to focus on the application logic and just ignore underline complexity behind these sms/mobile networks. Aventura platform provides a simple API to send and receive messages and all these magic built around it.

Another factor which motivated us to do this is the “revenue sharing process”. Etisalat is willing to share 70% of the profit they make from our applications. And there is no any startup fee or any registration fee to host an application on the Aventura Platform. Not only that we never need to worry about the infrastructure as well, because they are kind enough to provide decent set of infrastructure to host our application.

Appzone.lk is going to make a big difference in Sri Lankan mobile application market. I would like to take this as an opportunity to invite all the DEVELOPERS out there and specially the university students who are doing software development to be a part of this app revolution and make use if this great opportunity.

Group Members:

Tharaka Wanigasekara

Prasad Hewage

Tharaka Ranwatta

Chinthaka Senanayaka

Ranga Madushanka