2021 Apps UP Competition | Huawei Chen Lifang: The stars will never fade, let’s walk hand in hand

[Beijing, June 10] The 2021 Huawei HMS Global Application Innovation Competition (Apps UP) kicked off in Beijing, inviting global developers to integrate HMS Core open capabilities, innovate application experience, and build a full-scenario digital future of the Internet of Everything. The competition will bring together top global developers from different countries, and a professional jury consisting of senior technical experts, senior investment institution executives, Internet company CEOs and founders, senior technology media professionals, and representatives of non-profit organizations will provide all-round advice and support to developers of the competition.

Huawei Senior Vice President and Director Chen Lifang witnessed the opening ceremony online with the guests present and delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Stars Are Eternal, Let's Walk Hand in Hand". She shared the value and significance of the Huawei HMS Global Application Innovation Competition, encouraged more developers to bravely pursue their dreams through typical case sharing, and emphasized the female developer support plan to encourage women in science and technology to come to the front and show their self-worth.

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Huawei Senior Vice President and Director Chen Lifang delivered a speech via video

Mobile Internet enters the golden age, HMS releases its core potential

With the development of 5G technology and the influence of comprehensive factors such as the stay-at-home economy and cloud life, mobile devices and applications together constitute an important part of people's daily life. According to App Annie's "2021 Mobile Market Report", the use of mobile devices rose sharply in 2020, with global mobile market user spending totaling approximately US$143 billion, cumulative usage time reaching 3.5 trillion hours, and mobile application downloads increasing by 7% year-on-year to 218 billion.

"We are heading towards a digital and intelligent world. In fact, we are already living in an era full of apps. Apps have made our work and life more convenient than before, and this is inseparable from the efforts and contributions of thousands of developers," said Chen Lifang.

As an enterprise platform, how to help developers develop an APP efficiently and quickly, promote outstanding developers to stand out, allow more developers to innovate freely and create value for society has become the focus and value of Huawei's HMS ecosystem and the HMS Global Application Innovation Competition.

Chen Lifang pointed out: "HMS is not just about its own products and services, and it is not just about opening up API interfaces. We want to become a bridge and capability center, connecting consumers, developers, and third-party service providers to provide consumers with a richer and more efficient experience. We hope that through the Huawei App Market covering more than 170 countries and regions around the world, every innovative application and service can reach Huawei end users, so that global users can share the fruits of digital innovation."

With the support of global developers and partners, the open and win-win HMS ecosystem has achieved rapid growth worldwide and has become the world's third largest mobile application ecosystem. As of the end of May 2021, Huawei has more than 4 million registered developers worldwide, and the number of HMS Core applications integrated worldwide has exceeded 134,000.

Gathering the power of sparks to support the birth of innovative applications

By integrating Huawei's HMS open capabilities, more and more outstanding developers continue to innovate, providing the market with more high-quality innovative applications, enriching the full-scenario smart life experience.

Chen Lifang shared a story about a developer: On the Huawei App Store, a text recognition software called "Bai Miao" is very popular. At first, this app was created by a developer for his girlfriend who loves reading. After continuous polishing, including integrating the OCR capabilities provided by the Huawei platform, the function has been continuously improved and has been welcomed by more users. At present, "Bai Miao" has been installed nearly 14 million times.

Moreover, the software is also welcomed by the visually impaired. Through the feedback form of "photograph-recognize text-read the result", it makes it easier for the visually impaired to understand various flat texts in work and life. With its innovative ability and user reputation, "Bai Miao" won the Starlight Creativity Award of the HMS Global Application Innovation Competition last year and became a typical case for developers.

As a collection of Huawei's HMS open software and hardware capabilities, HMS Core is the foundation that best reflects the HMS ecosystem capabilities. It provides developers with a complete set of basic application development services to help developers build applications quickly, efficiently, at low cost and in a simple way.

As Huawei's HMS ecosystem gradually improves, development stories like "Bai Miao" will continue to unfold. Huawei will also open up its core technical capabilities accumulated over the years to more developers, helping them innovate in their respective fields and create value for users and society.

Continue to invest in developer incentive programs to encourage innovation among women in technology

To encourage outstanding developers from around the world to join, this year's Huawei HMS Global App Innovation Competition offers a rich incentive plan of US$1 million, and newly added "Best HMS Core Innovation Award", "Full Scenario Innovation Award" and "Technology Women Award". The establishment of the "Technology Women Award" is intended to support and encourage more outstanding women in the field of science and technology to stand out.

Chen Lifang said: "We set up such a program and award in the hope that outstanding female practitioners in the field of science and technology can step forward, stand under the spotlight, and demonstrate their self-worth. I also hope that their achievements can inspire more women to bravely pursue their dreams."

Huawei is committed to empowering women through education. Education empowerment spans different ages, countries, and economic development levels to help solve the digital gender divide in different regions. Currently, it has launched women's digital technology empowerment projects in Ireland, Argentina, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and other countries. Among the participants in ICT training programs such as "Seeds for the Future", the proportion of female trainees exceeds 30%. On March 8 this year, Huawei also officially launched the "Huawei Women Developer Program" to the world (application link).

Huawei's HMS ecosystem not only drives the transformation of the industry ecosystem and business model, but is also an important path to achieve inclusive digitalization in the new technology era. Based on the complete technical solution support of Huawei's HMS ecosystem open capabilities, integrated development environment and tools, and the convenient development experience of "one-point access, serving the world", developers will give full play to their innovation potential and bring more application innovation experience to users in the 5G+AI smart era, change life with technology, and thus create greater social value, accelerate technological breakthroughs, and jointly promote the construction of a full-scenario smart ecosystem.

At the launch ceremony, Chen Lifang used "trees" and "roots" to metaphorically illustrate the close relationship between the thriving HMS ecosystem and developers: "A towering tree must have its roots. The thriving growth of the HMS ecosystem is not only the evolution of technological empowerment, but also the result of close collaboration between Huawei and the vast number of developers."

"I believe that more and more people will gather together through the HMS platform. Every twinkling star will help the HMS ecological fire burn brighter and brighter, bringing more excitement and creativity to the world," said Chen Lifang.