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Magna Carta of Women Mobile Apps Development Contest


About the Contest

The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) with support from the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) is inviting all IT students from both public and private colleges and universities within Metro Manila to join in the “Magna Carta of Women Mobile Apps Development Contest” to develop an Android-based mobile apps based on the Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta of Women (MCW).

This application aims to raise public awareness and popularize the provisions of the MCW and to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Signed on 14 August 2009, the Magna Carta of Women is comprehensive women’s human rights law that seeks to eliminate discrimination against women by recognizing, protecting, fulfilling and promoting the rights of Filipino women, especially those in marginalized sector.

The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) being the primary policy-making and coordinating body on women and gender equality concerns acts as a catalyst for gender mainstreaming, authority on women’s concerns, and lead advocate of women’s empowerment, gender equity, and gender equality in the country.

A learning-while-developing contest type, prospect developers will first have to gain knowledge on the provisions of the MCW before and during the development process. They can review available information from the website of PCW and other IEC material available as inputs for the concepts they wish to work on.


Who can participate

  • This contest is open to students from colleges and universities (public and private) within Metro Manila.
  • Teams can be composed of 2-5 students per team.
  • Teams can have a non-IT member/s as long as half of the team are IT students.
  • Each team member must be a registered student and currently enrolled at his/ her respective school.
  • More than one team per school is allowed to participate.

Mechanics

  1. Mobile apps must run on android-powered devices (native application)
  2. Mobile apps must support the provisions of the MCW or promote women’s empowerment and gender equality.
  3. Mobile apps can fall under any of the following type:
    • Education/Reference
    • Games: Brain, Puzzle, Action and Arcade
    • Social Networking
    • Lifestyle
    • Productivity Tools
  4. Participants should ensure the virality of the apps they are developing by applying any or a combination of the following suggested elements
  5. Intuitive design and Usability (Visual appeal, easy to follow/simple mechanics)
  6. Push notification (news, alerts via PCW FB and Twitter syndication)
  7. Multiple Social platform integration
  8. Reward System (e.g. rewarding social sharing/invitation and offer them incentives to comeback, reward achievement and engagement)
  9. Feedback system
  10. Customization, giving the user some level of control (e.g. what to share/post)
  11. Mobile apps should adhere to the Appstore Developer Program Policies. Please refer to the following link: http://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html
  12. Mobile apps should include analytics (e.g. google’s mobile analytics) to provide data on downloads and other relevant app insights and metrics.

Selection Process

Stage 1: Pre-Screening Process

  1. To participate, each team must fill-out the Concept Proposal form and submit to PCW on or before 5:00PM of December 20, 2013. Form may be sent by email (scanned copy), fax, or mail.
  2. All proposals will undergo a pre-screening process on December 23, 2013
  3. Finalist will be selected based on the following criteria:
    • Content (will it effectively promote the provisions of the MCW and/or gender equality and women’s empowerment?)
    • Level of innovation and uniqueness of the concept
    • Viability of the concept
    • Appeal to the target audience
  4. An acknowledgement letter will be sent to those who pass the pre-screening process signifying their eligibility to participate in the competition.
  5. Shortlisted participants will be invited to a meeting on January 11, 2014 to discuss further the details of the next stage of the competition and to address /clarify participants’ inquiries.

Stage 2: 

  1. The entries must be sent on or before 6:00 PM of February 28, 2014.
  2. Contestants must submit the following for the competition:
    • Fully-functional android-based mobile application; and
    • 2-3 minute promotional video of mobile apps with the following format:
      • What is the mobile application all about?
      • How is it different from other mobile apps?
      • The target user group
      • It’s features and functionality
    • User’s Manual
  3. Once a submission is made, teams may not make any alternations until the judging is complete and winners are announced.
  4. Submitted entries will be evaluated from March 01-10, 2014.
  5. All mobile apps entries will be evaluated using the following criteria:
    • Innovation and Originality (freshness and uniqueness of the concept) – 20%
    • Content (adherence to the Magna Carta of Women or to Women Empowerment)– 40%
    • Intuitive design and usability- (visual appeal, user-friendliness, mechanics are easy to follow)– 20%
    • Technical quality (system performance and stability) – 20%
  6. In order to qualify in the final stage, entries should get a score of at least 50% of the percentage allocation for each of the following criteria: Content; Intuitive design and usability; Technical quality.
  7. Example: 1 entry got the score of 15% in the content, it will not be considered as one the finalist
  8. All who qualify will be ranked and only the top 5 will be invited to a presentation on March 12, 2014 for the final judging
  9. Facilities and peripherals will be provided by PCW.
  10. Winners will be notified via email or phone call on March 20, 2014 and will be announced via PCW Website, Facebook page and other media.
  11. The awarding ceremony will be held on March 28, 2014 and the winners will be invited to publicly present their winning apps.

Awards and Prizes

Prizes and awards will be given to the winning teams during the awarding ceremonies.
• 1st Prize : Php 50,000.00
• 2nd Prize : Php 30,000.00
• 3rd Prize : Php 20,000.00

Prizes are net of tax