Motorola Launches Contest For Moto Z Mod Makers

Motorola is launching a competition to encourage developers to come up with their own ideas of mods for its modular smartphone, the Moto Z. This is meant to boost the number of options that users will have in customizing their smartphone, which currently offers extra battery life, a projector, and even an external camera.

According to a blog post by the smartphone maker, it needs the help of third-party developers in order to create more peripherals, accessories, and mods for its phone. The company had already released the developer kit for the phone’s mods a while back, but it seems it hasn’t picked up the kind of attention that the company was expecting.

“We know we can’t come up with every Moto Mods idea on our own, and real innovation doesn’t happen behind closed doors,” the post reads. “That’s why we shared the Moto Mods Development Kit (MDK) with the world, allowing people everywhere to contribute to the ecosystem by bringing their own Moto Mods to life.”

Motorola’s approach involves several parts, Digital Trends reports. The first is the team-up that it has going on with Indiegogo and Verizon. The second is the contest that it is launching called “Transform the Smartphone Challenge,” which is meant to have ideas brewing regarding Moto Z mods.

Anyone who wants to participate can submit their application online. They could also just attend the hackathon, which will be held in New York in December and in San Francisco in January.

Anyone who passes the preliminaries will need to raise money through Indiegogo, where so-called experts will help them with their crowdfunding efforts. The teams with the ten most successful ideas will go on to Motorola’s headquarters, where they will make their pitch and where they’ll get the chance to have their mods distributed by Verizon. Motorola has already set aside $1 million to bring the best mod ideas to consumers nationwide.