The #AndroidDevChallenge has returned and here’s how to win it!
Okay forget how I can ever tell you to win the challenge since I’m no genius to tell you that, but it was only to catch your attention.
So if you keep up with what’s new in the Android Dev world and don’t know about #AndroidDevChallenge, you’ve probably been under a rock.
Google recently announced at Android Dev Summit 2019 that it’s bringing back the Android Developer Challenge: a way to help reward model apps and show us what user problems you wanted to solve. The challenge is open for everyone to participate and you have until December 2nd to submit your idea (that’s correct, you’ll have plenty of time to work on the execution later):
And if chosen, you’ll have the moment of a lifetime with Google as they’ll be mentoring you all the way and celebrate you by giving you just the right exposure at the right place:
There’s a catch for the challenge though: the area that the challenge is focused on is to use On-Device Machine Learning to provide something genuinely helpful for users in terms of helping them get things done. Since Google already has a number of On-Device Machine Learning services, it wants you to make use of them since you’ll be working closely with Google engineering experts if your idea makes it to top 10. Few of the ML services that Google offers are:
- ML Kit
- TensorFlow Lite
- Google Cloud’s on-device machine learning offerings such as AutoML Vision Edge
How to participate:
Now that a good one-minute summary is over, the next thing is how to actually think of an executable idea, how to write the cover letter that Google has provided, whether to keep your GitHub repo private or public, what to do next, and how to actually win this challenge (the things that I mention next are unofficial and is only my opinion on how to give your all in submitting your app concept):
- Thinking of an executable idea could be an easy job and I bet you can think of a thousand ideas while reading the official docs of the Google ML services that I’ve linked above. If not, you can think of how other apps (especially Google’s) take advantage of ML in the most subtle way that helps millions of people every single day and advance or mold that idea into something you’d want for yourself personally. Some of the examples of ML in Google apps that you can use or read more about are:
- Google Lens in Google Photos.
- Smart Compose in Gmail.
- Live captions in the new Pixel phones.
- Next thing is to create a GitHub repo and tagging it with #AndroidDevChallenge. I honestly hesitated to keep it public at first but since Google Dev community has always been about helping each other and a private repo cannot be viewed with a URL that you submit in the submission form; make it public, and include your cover letter in the repo and any sample code that you might’ve written.
- Writing your cover letter has been the most confusing and the most time-consuming for me since it’s the crucial part but also, I couldn’t find any sample letters or old cover letters, and I could only find 2–3 GitHub repos regarding the challenge. But if it’s of any help, here’s how I approached it after reading a few of the other participants’ letters: https://github.com/waseefakhtar/textify
- The final part is to submit the official proposal for the contest here, which simply asks for links to cover letter, sample codes etc. that I recommend to store in the same GitHub repo.
Again, I’m no expert in making people win the contest but the only that got me writing this is because I couldn’t find many resources from the community that could help me submit my idea for the challenge, so why not! It’d be awesome to hear your opinion about how you think a good submission would look like and if this post ever helps you in winning the challenge, I’d be more than happy to know about how my contributions in the dev community helps in their own little ways!
Now get your hands dirty, prepare an awesome application and start developing awesome apps! 💻
Read more about it in the official blogpost: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/10/android-developer-challenge.html
