Nokia’s incoming CEO Stephen Elop (pictured) made a surprise appearance at the closing of Nokia World this week and urged the developer community to stay loyal to the Finnish vendor in an effort to help it make up lost ground on Apple. “Fundamentally at Nokia we are capable of building great devices and getting them out there. But without you guys we can’t create vibrancy within the ecosystem,” Mr Elop told an audience gathered to see the winners of Nokia’s apps developers awards. “It isn’t just that I love developers, it’s that you guys bring the system to life.” Elop also repeated the mantra of his former boss – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer – when he told the audience that success is all about “developers, developers, developers.”

Elop then announced Kenya’s Virtual City Ltd as winner of the company’s Growth Economy Venture Challenge. “I can’t help but be proud that my first act as CEO-elect of Nokia is to give you a million dollars,” Elop said, awarding the amount to the Kenyan firm’s Mobile Distributor Solution product that develops software to help small distributors and retailers run their business with the help of mobile phones. 

Nokia spent much of last week attempting to persuade developers that it has made it “easier and more lucrative” for them to build apps for its phones. Such steps include improving its QT development kit so that there are far fewer codes required to develop apps for Nokia’s Symbian smartphones. It has also changed the revenue share for developers where operator billing is enabled, and announced the availability of in-app purchase support.

Catch up on all our coverage of Nokia at its annual industry event here.