Momentum Core and Leti Arts bring African apps to Mobile World Congress

African start-ups Momentum Core and Leti Arts will this year showcase their apps optimised for Intel Architecture at Mobile World Congress. Momentum Core will showcase its Simiyu the Chicken gaming app while Leti Arts will showcase their Leti Center.

The two apps were developed with support from Intel’s Software Services Group in Africa which has been training developers in the last 6 months, enabling them to create and port Android apps for Intel Android devices.

Urging developers across Africa to take advantage of the free resources and training support offered by Intel Corporation in Africa, Agatha Gikunda, Software Services Lead for East Africa, called upon developers to register on the Intel Developer Zone — a collaborative online platform and software development community designed to support and respond to challenges faced by software developers.

“By registering on the Intel developer Zone, developers are able to get firsthand information on the trainings, programs or resources that the company is offering as well as engage with more than 20 000 independent software vendors worldwide that are registered on the platform. Momentum Core and Leti Arts are a testament to Intel’s commitment to invest in African developers. We are still looking for more tech start-ups to support,” she added.

The Leti Center app consists of a superhero series influenced by folklore and historic legends from across Africa. Leti Arts, the company behind the app, re-imagines African folklore and historic legends interspersed with fictional characters, as elite superheroes fighting crime in present day Africa.

“Our goal of merging the past with the present in an exciting and compelling format is to encourage younger generations to be genuinely excited about African history and culture. The more relevant we make history and culture in education, the better the long term prospects for preserving culture and heritage. We are proud to deliver this on cutting edge technology, both hardware and software, from Intel,” said Wesley Kirinya, Corporate Technology Officer, Leti Arts.

Simiyu the Chicken is a thrilling action packed game that was recently showcased at Intel’s CodeFest, a hands-on workshop, with technical experts from Intel showing how to create an NDK app.

“We had earlier designed Simiyu the Chicken as a pure Dalvik Java game but when we started working with Intel, we discovered various features of the Intel NDK that enabled us to re-use the logic and improve overall performance-critical parts of our game,” says Dennis Riungu, the Chief Operation Officer Momentum Core.

One of the tools that Momentum Core has been using is Intel’s GPU Analyser tool which helps them analyse how 2D images can be optimized for a seamless game, and test their performance. Through this, the company has been able to identify and monitor several parts of the game that require more modification.

Through an established programme between Intel, iHub and Mlab, Intel’s Software Service Group is collaborating with select universities in Africa to provide resources in the universities’ hardware labs, integrate High Performance Computing into university curriculum, and recently launched a Student Developer Partner Program.

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This article by Caroline Vutagwa originally appeared on TechMoran, a Burn Media publishing partner.