To know more about Aakash, please read Genesis of Aakash2
- Last date for project proposal (modified): 25 April 2013
- List of shortlisted projects: 5 May 2013, will be displayed on this page (http://aakashlabs.org/compete)
- Final submission by shortlisted projects: 15 July 2013 (submission/upload link will be made available from 1st to 15th of July 2013)
- There is no registration fee
- Number of prizes: If there are a large number submissions, we will have several parallel tracks, and give prizes for each track separately
- Announcement of results/winners: Depends on number of projects, in any case on or before 15th August 2013
- Who can apply?: Anyone can apply
- Team size: Maximum five members in a team - one person team is also acceptable
- What we expect: A useful idea that will make Aakash more useful to the public
- State of project: Must be complete at the time of submission with all source code under GPLv3 or Free BSD License
- Mode of submission: A apk file for Android & a deb file for GNU/Linux. Also a link to project source code and binary (should be hosted on Github, bitbucket or any public code hosting site)
- Mode of contact: We will be available on forums, post your doubts and queries there so that everyone will be benefited
Mode of evaluation
- A team will first review you app and its usefulness
- Another team will test your app
Some project ideas
- Teaching/education: some ideas are animations and interactive content - these can be at school or college or research level
- Projects that promote indic language use
- Projects that help improve the day to day life of ordinary citizens
- Meaningful games or quizzes
- Contributing to existing open source projects and porting them to Aakash
Projects not allowed
- Apps with advertisements and business links
- Apps made with unlicensed/pirated software
- Unauthorized use of clips/songs/images or any copyright materials without the permission of the owner
- Apps without proper documentation and help content
How to start building apps on Android
- Download and setup your android tool chain with API-15 on your OS based on developer.android.com
- Learn Java programming language (officially supported and recommended) or explore other options to program Android (eg: appinventor , sl4a)
- Use android emulator to test your app
How to start building apps on GNU/Linux
- We are using Ubuntu 12.10 LXDE on Aakash, setup a GNU/Linux machine to be close to this spec to get maximum compatibility
- With GNU/Linux, you can build apps with real hardware interfacing, as we have required drivers enabled in kernel (Android don't support this)
- Recommended tools to design GUI: Glade (other options: Qt Designer or code based designs or any tool of your choice. Eg: wxPython)
- Recommended languages: C, C++, Python, Java (any other programming languages is equally welcome)
Things to take care of
- Your app shouldn't use more than 20MB of RAM (this may be relaxed in extraordinary applications)
- Must be reliable and should not crash (exceptions must be neatly handled)
- Interface should be neat & easy to understand
- The app should be touch friendly (for GNU/Linux too)
- Documentation and help content is a must (use of screenshots,illustrations, animations are allowed to make help content more appealing)
Support
- Most of the support on Android and Linux is available online. Narrow down your searches to forums, blogs, Q&A sites, etc
- Join our google-groups with your gmail-id for any further discussions. Non Gmail users can simply follow these steps :
i) Email to aakashlabs+subscribe@googlegroups.com from your other email account
ii) An automated email will be received from aakashlabs+subconfirm@googlegroups.com almost immediately
iii) Replying back to that email(from aakashlabs+subconfirm@googlegroups.com) will join you to our google groups.
Keep visiting this page for further updates.
Aakash is funded by the National Mission on Education through ICT, MHRD, Government of India