A select group of Bermuda students and IT professionals received some special hands-on experience in developing mobile apps thanks to a free workshop.The Technology Leadership Forum (TLF) last week partnered with CellOne and BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion (RIM) to offer a free two-day workshop to provide highly-specialised instruction on how to create mobile applications for BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook devices.The workshop, which took place on July 26 and 27 at Bermuda College was facilitated by the New Toronto Group — an organisation that works closely with RIM and specialises in mobile application development. It’s the same company that provided instruction at last year’s BlackBerry Developers Boot Camp which was held in advance of the App-ti-tude competition.There’s no such competition this year, but the App-ti-tude partners agreed to offer the mobile app workshop to the local community anyway. They were excited to partner with the TLF to offer this training opportunity to the TLF internship participants and professionals from Bermuda’s IT business community.“As market trends and demands for smartphones and tablets increase in wireless telecommunications, it is important to exhibit the talents of Bermudians who are innovators with an entrepreneurial spirit within the industry,” said Frank Amaral, COO of CellOne. “This year’s workshops will hopefully result in more locally developed applications.”The TLF thanked the App-ti-tude sponsors who made the mobile application development workshop possible.“We had 15 participants in the two-day workshop, which included the 2012 TLF interns and IT professionals from the business community,” said Vicki Coelho, general manager of North Rock Communication and treasurer of the TLF.“We know that the Developers Boot Camp was well received last year and believe that the content of this year’s training will be well used by the participants.”The TLF Internship Programme, now in its fourth year, aims to encourage Bermuda’s information technology students to become exposed to the many career opportunities out there today. Each year, a handful of top IT students are selected for the intensive 12-week summer internship. To learn more about the programme and how to apply, visit www.tlf.bm.