This weekend during the BlackBerry Community & Android Port-A-Thons we witnessed something very special happen, something which can energize all our developer community!

We had over 1,000 people around the globe come together for 37.5 hours and submit over 15,000 apps for BlackBerry 10. After five hours we had over 4,000 apps submitted and after nine hours we had over 6,300 apps submitted. One of the developers put this into perspective when he tweeted

@lougazzola Impressive. I remember it taking over a year for AppWorld to get its first 6,300 apps…

— Eric Harty (@Ebscer) January 12, 2013

The Twitterverse was a buzz with over 1,200 #BB10Portathon mentions. 15,060 apps submitted shows that it’s easy to build a BlackBerry 10 app.

We’ve witnessed a huge transition of developers who now believe in the potential for success on the platform and take the time to create an incredible number of apps. The RIM team creating our developer SDKs and tools have made it easy for developers to bring their apps to BlackBerry 10 – in the language you like writing in. Here’s what our community is saying:

@lougazzola @leinir @4shelbysdevs I agree with this. I can even port my android app/webworks/phonegap in under 1 minute really.

— NemOry Oliver (@NemOry) January 14, 2013

@nemory @lougazzola @leinir @4shelbysdevs agreed.. I ported my Adobe Air app in around a minute packaged and signed.

— Stephen (@NZCoderGuy) January 14, 2013

Erik Oros (Application Development Consultant) fielded questions in his area of expertise (HTML5) and I (Lou Gazzola, Senior Marketing Manager) hosted the event. Both of us were on for the complete 37.5 hours. RIM had over 20 experts from around the world that helped developers and I am blown away by the community support with “Oliver”, “K Cheung” and “Michael K” spending most of the time porting apps AND helping the community.

We also had our partners available with representatives from Marmalade, AppendTo (jQuery), PhoneGap, and Appcelerator participating. After witnessing what was happening many of our partners stayed well beyond their scheduled hours.

What an incredible effort from the entire community!  I want to extend a very heart felt Thank You to everyone that participated!!

“Port-A-Thon” is now a popular term among Asia Pacific developers. Developers have heard good stuff about BlackBerry GotGame virtual Port-a-thon in November, participated in the All-Aboard Port-a-thon on December, and then went nuts about the BlackBerry Got Game Port-A-Thon LIVE series that was held in eight cities in Asia Pacific.

When this weekend’s Port-A-Thons were announced, we got a really enthusiastic responses from APAC BlackBerry developer communities. They want to make sure quality apps will be ported, and a lot of them volunteered to host offline events across Asia to support developers to successfully port their apps. RIM Developer Evangelists, experienced BlackBerry developers and our BlackBerry Dev Group leaders will all be onsite all over Asia to support developers.

For the lucky developers who live in the below cities, be sure to pop by and get porting with us in the flesh!

Note: all date and times stated are based on local cities’ timezone.

China

Beijing – Pre Port-a-Thon tech seminar

(Organized by Iberry dev group)

Date/Time: January 11, 6:00PM to 9:00PM

Location: Monica’s café (北京市朝阳区大望路万达广场4号楼806)

Registration and more details: http://bit.ly/13j6bRw

Beijing – Android to BlackBerry Port-a-Thon Tech Seminar

(In collaboration with Iberry dev group)

Date/Time: 12^th 10:00AM to 1:00PM

Location: Monica’s café (北京市朝阳区大望路万达广场4号楼806)

Registration and more details: http://bit.ly/13j6bRw

Shanghai – Android to BlackBerry Port-a-Thon tech seminar

(organized by CNBBDevGroup, China)

Date/Time: January 12, 10:00AM to 1:00PM

Location: 上海市杨浦区淞沪路270号创智天地广场(KIC)3号楼B1层InnoSpace

Registration and more details: http://bit.ly/13j5kjB

India

Kochi, Kerala – Android Port-A-Thon for BlackBerry 10 Tech Support

(organized by Rubus Labs at Start-up Village)

Date/Time: January 12, 09:30AM onwards

Location: Rubus Labs, Startup Village, Kinfra High Tech Park, Kalamassery, Kochi-683503, Kerala

Enathur Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu – Android Port-A-Thon for BlackBerry 10 Tech Support

(organized by SCSVMV BlackBerry Developer Group)

Date/Time: January 12, 09:30AM onwards

Location: SCSVMV University, Dept. of CSE, SCSVMV University, Enathur Kanchipuram-631561,

Indonesia

Jakarta – BlackBerry 10 Android Port-a-Thon live Support

(In collaboration with ID Android and BBDevID)

Date/time: January 12, 10.00AM to 8.00PM

Location: Mercantile Athletic Club, Penthouse Floor (18th floor), World Trade Center 1, Jl. Jenderal Sudirman Kav. 31 Jakarta 12920

Registration and more details: http://bit.ly/13iJblF

Philippines

Manila – PinoyBBDev Port-a-thon Meetup

(organized by PinoyBBDev, in conjunction with Globe, Android and Web Communities)

Date/Time: January 12, 8:00AM to 6:00PM

Location: Globe Valero, Makati City

Registration and more details: http://bit.ly/13iLIvX

Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh – BlackBerry 10 Portathon Live Support Session

(organized by BlackBerry Developer Group – Vietnam)

Date/Time: January 11 & 12, 9:00AM to 8:00PM

Location: Cafe Dâu: 1E Nguyễn Văn Thủ, F. Dakao, Quận 1, T/P HCM.

More details: http://bit.ly/13iMMA9

Singapore

BlackBerry 10 Porting Clinic in Singapore

(In collaboration with PlugFest organizers)

Date/Time: January 12, 10:00AM to 6:00PM

Location: “Green Room” in Plug-in@BLK71

More details: http://bit.ly/VTUbzw