Forum Nokia, the Finland cell phone maker's developer support program, has tossed its gauntlet into the ring and announced the 'Open C Challenge' developer contest. The basic idea is to spur creative program development for the Symbian S60 smartphone platform. Prize booty includes $20,000.For developers who've had an itch to work on some programs for the Symbian S60 platform, Forum Nokia has just given you twenty thousand reasons to put any fears behind you and get started.

The contest will give developers a chance to show off their skills using Nokia's Open C POSIX environment, which is built on Symbian's P.I.P.S., to create and port mobile applications for S60. Forum Nokia is also providing some resources to help developers get started. Contestants will have access to Webinars, training sessions and peer-to-peer discussion boards to find the support and answers they need to begin their project. These tools will be especially helpful for developers used to writing for desktop environments in making the switch to the mobile environment.

"Nokia's global invitation to millions of developers to take the Open C Challenge taps the exponential growth in open source and Symbian developers currently working on exciting new applications for smartphone devices," said Lee Epting, vice president, Forum Nokia, in a prepared statement. "Identifying and rewarding the latest and greatest applications being built or ported with Open C will showcase the exciting growth in developer productivity that Open C is already driving in S60 smartphone application development worldwide."

The contest is also being sponsored by Orange in the U.K., and the Symbian Developer Network. In addition to the cash, winners will find themselves with a free year's membership to Forum Nokia PRO, marketing and business support, and the opportunity to distribute the application to Orange's customers.

While S60 isn't found too much in the U.S., it is the leading smartphone platform in the rest of the world. Symbian accounts for about 73% of global smartphone shipments.

Full contest rules and information can be found here.