BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) has said it would offer engineering students BASE (BlackBerry Application Student Entrepreneur) platform to enable them display their creativity in developing applications for its mobile phones.

The service, which will be available in Tamil Nadu, would help third- and fourth-year engineering students develop applications that would be used in AppWorld, BlackBerry Research In Motion India Head of Alliances Annie Mathew said.

AppWorld is the application store of BlackBerry. "It is an excellent example on academicia-industry collaboration. BASE would help them develop applications that will be made available in AppWorld," she said.

She said this was the first time that such an initiative was taken by RIM and the reason to select Tamil Nadu was it producing good number engineering graduates.

Stating that they had planned to cover over 2,500 students under the programme she said an awareness on BlackBerry would first be created among students through a Summit and those interested would be guided to develop the application.

"We will analyse their creative skills and based on their performance they would be awarded awards and certificates... This is actually a platform to showcase their creativity," she said.

Canada-headquartered RIM currently has over 55 million BlackBerry subscriber accounts and BlackBerry AppWorld is available in over 100 markets worldwide. There are now over 25,000 applications and 3 million of them are downloaded every day.