As part of the Astrient Labs’ (http://www.astrientlaboratories.com) knowledge transfer program, the Founder and C.E.O of Astrient Labs, Rashid Mayes hosted a two-day training seminar in mobile phone application programming. Astrient Labs is a mobile device consultancy firm based in the United States.

The mobile telecommunications industry is one of the biggest and fastest growing industries globally and currently boasts over a billion users. In Africa the telecommunications sector is expanding rapidly as populations look to mobile technologies to help them overcome poor existing communications infrastructure.

Students spent the day learning the basics of mobile phone programming using a simulated mobile phone toolkit and a programming development environment. The students had the chance to upload and run mobile phone applications on mobile devices.

The Astrient Fellowship, a knowledge transfer program also run by Astrient Labs, is currently receiving applications for African students to work as fellows developing their own technologies for mobile devices.