…youth to benefit from job opportunities

GUYANA will soon become a testing ground for mobile application companies, as STEMGuyana in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Telecommunications, will soon launch a global mobile app testing service.

According to a release from STEMGuyana, this global testing application would include services in market research and analysis, focus group research, User Interface and functionality testing and local product launches. And this service will seek to target app development companies in the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada.

“App testing and Marketing are very costly functions in ABC countries and very often developers are forced to launch without the critical feedback needed from users to help them to identify, debug and improve their apps before launching in major markets,” STEMGuyana co-founder Karen Abrams said, adding: “Consequently, many apps fail or fall short of expectations of users, resulting in very high failure rates.”

In Guyana, however Abrams noted that the relatively high cost of data and limited phone storage resources, make Guyana a “perfect testing ground”, since only the very best apps will survive rigorous testing, exhaustive marketing and Guyana’s selective customer base.

What also makes Guyana suitable for testing, according to the ‘tech’ heavyweight, is that the country has a unique proximity to large targeted international markets, it has an English-speaking population and has access to foreign products and programming, which makes the local consumers knowledgeable. The country also has a large diasporic presence in these targeted countries.

Added to that, STEMGuyana of itself has established a large network of technology, and youth who are capable of using the technology, throughout the country. At the recent exposition of an app that will soon be launched locally, Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes alluded to this venture of making Guyana a ‘testing ground’. “We want to be able to start saying to the rest of the world, ‘You have an app you want to test; pay somebody in Guyana to test your application here first, so you’ll know how you need to tweak it; how you’ll need to change before they introduce it to other markets,’” Minister Hughes highlighted. This, she said, could create yet another employment avenue for Guyanese. Abrams highlighted the employment opportunities that will be created as well.

According to the release, STEMGuyana intends to employ youth from its national network of STEM club trainers in its app testing service. “This is just one way we intend to bring employment to young people across Guyana,” Abrams related, and disclosed: “When we pitched the idea to Minister Hughes, she immediately embraced it and offered to help make this vehicle for technology employment available to youth across Guyana.”

The idea to conduct app testing in Guyana came as STEMGuyana Co-Founder, Asha Christian embarked on creating the Coily Hair mobile app, which will be launched in Guyana on July 27.
This app allows users with similar hair types to rate and review ethnic hair products, lets local hairstylists market their services to local customers and visitors to Guyana who live or work in their communities and allows large and small hair products manufacturers to expand their markets of highly rated products globally. ‘Coily’ will be officially launched at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, where about 1000 persons, including local businesses in the field, will be invited to ‘test out’ the app.