Nokia launches Appcelerate-India in a bid to boost Lumia and Windows app development

Nokia India, in collaboration with AppCampus (Finland) and members of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels (India Chapter), Friday announced their initiative, 'Appcelerate-India', in a bid to boost mobile app development on Nokia Lumia & Windows platform.

As a part of this initiative, AppCampus and Harvard Business School Alumni Angels India will invest in excess of $500,000 in 'Appcelerate-India' and provide a combination of grants, seed funding, mentoring, incubation resources to discover disruptive applications and nurture talented Indian mobile start-ups.

The most promising ideas from the Nokia's first consumer app reality television show, Your Wish Is My App, as well as submissions from the local ecosystem will be considered for investment and incubation. This initiative aims to combine the best of AppCampus' global acceleration model with the hands-on mentoring expertise of Appcelerate-India.

Nokia and Microsoft invested 18 million euros to form AppCampus, a mobile application accelerator program managed by Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. AppCampus is aimed at fostering mobile application development on Windows Phone.

Highlighting the essence of the collaboration Gerard Rego, Director- Developer Experience, Nokia India said, "At Nokia, our aim is to support Indian app developers to drive path-breaking innovation on our platform. We believe that this will open up countless opportunities to shape the app ecosystem, giving developers the chance to give new and innovative experiences to consumers".

Pekka Sivonen, Head of AppCampus said, "It's exciting to build this type of start-up collaboration, tailored for the Indian market, where we truly get to reach developers and start-ups locally and help them evolve into the next Big Thing."

Ravi Gururaj, Co-founder, HBS Alumni Angels India Chapter, said, "India has strong technology credentials and a renowned entrepreneurial background. The successful evolution of the technology industry in India presents a great opportunity for mobile app developers."