Our latest guest blog comes from Playgen Managing Director and Founder of Digital Shoreditch Kam Star, who along with others has recently launched the ‘Race for Apps’ contest, encouraging people to design and develop apps to showcase Hackney throughout the London Olympic and Paralympic Games:

With an anticipated 20,000 journalists and business leaders from around the world descending on Hackney during 2012, in and around Games time, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games presents a fantastic opportunity to showcase on a world stage the unrivalled culture and industry the borough has to offer. Hackney is not lacking in stories, with the fastest growing tech cluster in Europe, the largest concentration of creative industries anywhere in the UK, and a reputation for unrivalled culture, nightlife, and fashion. But how to capture all this in a way that drives business to the local economy, including Tech City?

In front of an audience of peers, Race for Apps was workshopped into being, a collaboration between Digital Shoreditch, the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), IC Tomorrow (a TSB Programme), and Hackney Council. Race for Apps is a competition to crowdsource mobile apps from the digital community – apps which will help the thousands of people coming to London in 2012 get the most out of the city as a whole, and Hackney in particular.

Apps will be created in each of the following 5 categories:

• Finding Your Way: Exploring Hackney, its hidden gems and headline attractions whether online or offline, virtual or actual.
• Making Connections: Link up with like-minded people and organisations, and share what you’re doing around the borough.
• Citizen Journalism: Got a story or picture? Need a story or picture? Build your own media channels, and the story of Hackney and East London.
• Fun and Games
• Wild Card – This one’s up to you – but remember it’s for visitors to the area and the local community.

In the spirit of next year, it’s a race in three stages:

• Qualifying: We are currently taking submissions, from ideas through to finished products requiring tweaking for a local flavour. Each of the five categories will close when eight viable entries are submitted.
• Racing: This is the development stage, for entrants to work with a network of mentors and investors, including Seedcamp, the Government’s UK Trade and Investment agency (UKTI), and Vodafone developer. Participants can also have their app seen on the Vodafone Shop.
• Finals: Crowdtesting the apps through IC tomorrow followed by a judging session with a panel from across the industry. Gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded for each category at Digital Shoreditch 2012, to be held at Hackney House between 21 May – 2 June.

The first phase is now open and we’re taking submissions – find out more here at www.raceforapps.com, or follow us on Twitter here – good luck!