Smartphone manufacturer Samsung Electronics has announced plans to host commercially viable applications developed in East Africa in its apps store, in a bid to support technology entrepreneurship in Kenya.

Samsung Electronics Africa product manager Jaco Van Zyl said the move will support local mobile web application developers to access the global market. Samsung Electronics will deploy applications created by local developers on its popular Android platform.

Speaking during the just concluded Google Student Summit in Nairobi, Van Zyl urged local App developers to consider developing solutions with a global market appeal.

The Samsung Apps Store which comes as a standard feature on all Samsung smartphones, is accessed by millions of mobile phone subscribers’ globally seeking to download quality Android applications in diverse categories such as Entertainment, Education, Games, Lifestyle, Travel and Productivity among others.

“Kenyan Application developers on the Android platform have equal access to other global developers to showcase their solutions on the Samsung Apps store, which is a gateway to global tech-preneurship,” said van Zyl.

“Local developers already appear to be gearing up for the available opportunities, which is encouraging to device manufacturers’ such as Samsung Electronics.”

Kenya has become a hub for app development, with young university students creating innovative applications across varied health, education, entertainment, transport, mobile money and agriculture.

John Kieti, manager of M-Lab East Africa, a Nairobi based incubation space for mobile technology start ups funded by the World Bank's development agency infoDev, welcomed the move saying it would give locally developed applications visibility.

“Local entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to expose their Apps. We have very innovative Apps, but entrepreneurs struggle to create awareness about them. This will give them visibility and increase uptake,” said Kieti.

During the Google Student Summit, Samsung Executives demonstrated to local technology students the options available on Samsung devices.

The demonstration session supports Samsung’s business growth strategy for Kenya and the rest of Africa, based on creating an entrepreneurial attitude among Kenyan youth in the ICT sector.

“The Android platform makes up 53% of all the operating systems in the market, with the key benefit being its versatility and capacity to host more applications and features thus enhancing the phone’s effectiveness,”said Samsung Electronics East Africa business leader, Robert Ngeru.

The Summit brought together students from different universities across Sub-Saharan Africa, with an aim of enhancing their professional development, leadership, and communication skills.