The BlackBerry Academic Program is Research In Motion’s curriculum to help students gain further knowledge of concepts related to mobile computing and mobile application development. It’s already been implemented in 113 countries and RIM announced that it’s being extended to our local universities.
By participating in the program, universities have access to materials to train students in the essentials of mobile application development on the BlackBerry platform as well as the administration and support of BlackBerry technologies in an enterprise environment.
Through BAP partnerships, RIM provides learning materials, devices, software and other resources that reflect the most current technological trends. BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets are provided to facilitate a vital hands-on learning experience.
The BlackBerry Academic Program, which is available for free to tertiary institutions and students throughout the Philippines and around the world, gives educators access to the latest teaching resources and BlackBerry technologies, equipping students with the knowledge and practical hands-on experience to enhance their development skills and create apps.
Students at a number of universities in the Philippines are already benefiting from access to the tools and resources of BlackBerry Academic Program through the web> This includes individuals at universities Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University and University of Philippines.
“œFilipinos are a very important part of our global developer community so we are very excited to extend the BlackBerry Academic Program to the Philippines,” said Hastings Singh, Managing Director of South Asia at RIM. “œToday, staff and students in institutions across the Philippines are using BlackBerry academic resources to prepare students embarking on careers and starting businesses in the fast growing mobile computing sector. We want to support the future generation of mobile software developers in this country and we invite more universities in the Philippines to become part of this global network.”
In addition to the BlackBerry Academic Program, RIM is already supporting the Philippine developer community in a number of ways. Recently, RIM brought the BlackBerry JamHack to Manila, where over 28 teams of professional developers, student teams, and BlackBerry enthusiasts, were given 40 hours to conceptualize and build a working application for the BlackBerry 10 platform.
Philippine developers are already successfully creating local apps and content on the BlackBerry platform, which are available on BlackBerry World. These include MMDA for BlackBerry, which gives users the latest information on the traffic situation in Metro Manila; Meralco AppCal by Meralco, which allows you to calculate your monthly electricity usage and is updated monthly with the latest power rates; and Deal Detector, which gives information on the great offers and deals in town.
For more information on how students and institutions can enroll in the program, please visit www.blackberry.com/academic.