The BlackBerry Developer Relations team has paired up with Skillsmatter to offer training on BlackBerry 10 development. To kick off the partnership, we are running a BlackBerry Jam event on March 7th in London.

Our dynamic duo of Developer Evangelists from the UK, Luca Sale and Don Turner, will run the bulk of the program which will cover everything you need to know about development for BlackBerry 10.

Attendees will gain insight on building applications for the new BlackBerry 10 platform. Beginner and master mobile application developers will be able to attend in-depth sessions focused on HTML5 development with BlackBerry WebWorks and Native C/C++ development for the BlackBerry platform with our BlackBerry 10 Native SDK. Developers will be able to interact with development experts who can provide guidance, tips and tricks, and other information to help get started building apps for BlackBerry 10.

After a fully packed day of sessions, we’ll head to the local pub!

To find out more and register, please visit Skillsmatter.

Here’s William from our BlackBerry Developer Relations team in EMEA to report on the most recent BlackBerry® 10 Jam tour stop! – Ed.

The London BlackBerry 10 Jam was our largest event to date, attracting developers looking to see what the BlackBerry 10 development tools are capable of. This was another great event to experience, as both the sheer number of developers and their positive attitudes alone were amazing. The venue, Vinopolis (a massive wine bar/conference center home-extension project bunker), was somewhat odd in its complex levels and floors and winding passages, but we didn’t lose one developer all day. They came, they saw, they enjoyed what they saw of BlackBerry 10 – now they want more!

Stephen Bates, Managing Director Europe, kicked off the proceedings with an excellent keynote job that covered all the points effortlessly and gave the day an energetic buzz that kept building after each presentation. Andy Tipton was our MC for the day and kept the flow going on schedule.

Vivek Bhardwaj presented a seamless “Experience of BlackBerry” presentation, generating ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the audience when they saw the demos of the photo correction app and new virtual keyboard UI. Michael Weitzel continued with an animated trek through the BlackBerry 10 architecture and was assisted by Luca Sale on the demo device showing Cascades™. Later, Nick Smith of Marmalade provided his magical demonstrations of games running on both a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

Rana and Suavek both introduced what they were going to cover in the afternoon breakouts, and following their brief introductions we stopped for lunch and managed to move the almost 500 developers through the labyrinth to be fed and return for the lightning pitches.

The afternoon split into its native and web tracks, and we repeated the formula of Suavek being assisted by Nick from Marmalade. Yet again, this combination provided a lot of information and excitement. At the end of the day, we’d given out the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha prototype devices to a delighted audience of both new and established developers.This was another wildly successful day, and I was excited by the developer comments on Twitter®.

We generated a huge level of interest through this one-day event, but don’t take my word for it – take a look at what our developers are saying:

@BlackBerryDev I've already sat down to work on BB10 app today after yesterday's London #BB10Jam! Excited by range of development options!—
Kate Glover (@lifson) June 15, 2012

@Derrickerrol Surprisingly tiring! So much good information and guidance! With #BB10Jam BB are really showing they care about devs – I did!—
Julian Clark (@B1uehoo1igan) June 15, 2012

Yesterday's WebWorks session at #BB10Jam was awesome and even got my 14 year old inspired to create apps. @BlackBerryDev—
DJ Reyes  (@djr3yes) June 15, 2012

@ardiri I did, thanks to all the staff at #BB10Jam today! They sorted out us devs who are keen to get apps out. Appreciate this opportunity.—
Matt (@blackberry_matt) June 14, 2012

@blackberrydev I love using my BlackBerry dev alpha thanks to #BB10Jam thanks —
Ben Smith Bortey (@BensmithB) June 14, 2012

My BlackBerry 10 hands on fun. Pure sweetness! crackberry.com/hands-blackber… #BB10Jam—
James Richardson (@j4mes73) June 14, 2012

Next stop, New York City (sold out!) on Tuesday June 19th.

The Research In Motion® (RIM®) Developer Relations team recently hosted a BBM™ Hackathon event in NYC. Developers were invited to apply for a chance to participate in the event, getting one-on-one time with BlackBerry® platform experts and network with other developers while working on integrating social elements into apps using the BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM) APIs.

Attendees told us that they found the direct contact with our social platform experts to be invaluable – and we liked hearing that so much that we’ve decided to host more of these hackathon events across the globe in the coming weeks.

The first of these events happened yesterday in our company hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, with the second event happening today, September 29th. Following this, we’ll be hosting BBM Apps Hackathons in Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Jakarta, Amsterdam, London and more. Here are the scheduled dates:

Updated Dates!

• Toronto: October 6th and 7th
• Chicago: October 10th and 11th
• San Francisco: October 16th and 17th (just in time for BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011!)
• Boston: November 3rd and 4th
• Jakarta: November 14th and 15th
• Bangkok: November 17th and 18th
• Amsterdam: November 24th and 25th (updated)
• London, England: November 28th and 29th (updated)

To enter for your chance to attend one of the BBM Apps Hackathon events, follow this simple process to apply: Visit the site bbmappshackathon.com and fill out an application, outlining among other things (i) why you feel social platform integration adds value to mobile applications; and (ii) give an example of previous mobile apps you have developed.

Developers who are selected to attend a BBM Apps Hackathon event will also receive a BlackBerry gift bag, which includes a BlackBerry® 7 OS device. In addition, those selected to attend the Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco Hackathon events will also receive a pass to attend BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 and three night accommodation at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis for the duration of the conference.

We definitely recommend that developers of any level apply to attend these collaborative events. The BlackBerry Social Platform gives developers a way to tie existing apps to BBM, or to build social apps from the ground up. One of the benefits to these social aspects is the added viral buzz that an app can gain from integrating with BBM. At these hackathons, developers will discover valuable strategies that will help them add social aspects to their apps.

Would you be interested in this type of event? Let us know which hackathons you’ll be applying to attend!

The London BlackBerry® Developer Group will be holding their inaugural meeting in one of the public spaces at the Royal Festival Hall (Level 4) on Tuesday Thursday, December 2nd 2010 starting at 6:00pm.

Food and drink will be available from the bars and cafes in the building, and the meeting agenda will be available for viewing on the group’s site shortly. Anyone interested in joining the group and attending the meeting is encouraged to register on the site.

Please visit our BlackBerry Developer Groups site to find a group in your area or start a new one!