TapTechNews (May 11) - China Telecom officially announced the establishment of the world’s first OpenGateway joint lab in collaboration with GSMA in Beijing, named GSMA-China Telecom OpenGateway OpenLab.
This lab will provide developers with development tools, testing environments, product guidance, and technical support to better harness the potential of the OpenGateway API.
TapTechNews Note: Launched at the MWC Barcelona 2023, the OpenGateway initiative by GSMA is a global standardized network application programmable interface framework designed to offer universal access interfaces to help developers more quickly connect to operator networks, thereby accelerating the development of digital services and applications.
During the licensing ceremony, the two parties also announced that the first major event post-establishment of the OpenLab, the 'GSMA-China Telecom OpenGateway Hackathon', officially started on May 9. It is an open call for developers worldwide to develop software based on the OpenGateway standard APIs, using online or offline development tools. The competition relies on the support provided by the GSMA-China Telecom OpenGateway OpenLab. The semi-finalists will be selected through an initial online submission of ideas, and then compete in a 48-hour intensive development session during MWC Shanghai in June, where their projects will be presented and defended to compete for first, second, and third place awards at a ceremony, with a top prize of RMB 50,000 (approximately USD 7,200).
As of May 8, operators from 49 mobile networks representing 241 worldwide have signed the OpenGateway Memorandum of Understanding, covering 66% of global mobile connections.
It is worth mentioning that the three major Chinese operators signed the OpenGateway Memorandum in June 2023 and launched the world's first GSMA-certified OpenGateway API in March 2024: the One-Time Password (OTP) API.