It was in mid January when I laid my hands on the first Unagis in Kenya ( Firefox OS developer phones ). The phones were delivered by Didem the lead of Mozilla WFD program and a friend I made when I attended my first MozCamp in singapore Asia. Didem was on a mission to attend Nairobi Apps Day a mega event that we staged in the capital city of Kenya attracting a attendance of about one hundred and fifty web developer.
After the very successful event I was one of the lucky reps that were allowed to take the phones with us, try there other one was Bosire, both of us having shown the interest to test the device, develop apps and hack the OS. This got me so inspired thatI dived right away into developing apps for the Firefox marketplace. I am glad to report that I was the first Kenya and perhaps African to submit an app the Firefox marketplace. The app passed all the requirements and it was listed on the marketplace.
The app I build was a news reader for the just concluded general elections that were held in Kenya in the month of june. The app works well both on Firefox OS and Android devices. The app is called Kenya Elections and it can be found here https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/kenya-election?src=search
I have had a number for sessions where I show developers how to package their open web apps for the Firefox market place. The sessions are mostly intaractive and we offen end up with a few prototype apps. In the near future I believe more Kenyans will be able to post apps into the firefox market place.
Many locals have had a chance to interact with the Firefox OS device when the attend events organized by the local Mozilla community and they give very positive feedback though the OS is quite unfinished. I will soon together with other reps receive the Keon which is the current developer phone Firefox OS for testing. I will be able to share my other device with someone else from the local community and I believe the same goes for Bosire who is the holder of the other Unagi. I will be able to share a review of the Keon once I have it and also showcase it in events.
