| Issue 2
Programming
a Digital Future for Qatar
O
n 27 January 2017, 15 teams of students
were hosted by Carnegie Mellon University
in Qatar (CMU-Q) to compete in a 24-hour
CarnegieApps Hackathon.
The Hackathon followed in the footsteps of last year’s
successful competition. This year marked the first time,
however, that universities outside of Qatar also sent
students to participate, with teams from as far afield as
India and Australia, bringing a global edge to the event.
Under the guidance of Dan Phelps, Associate
Professor of Information Systems at CMU-Q , the
event gave students an opportunity to exhibit their
programming prowess.
Over the course of the 24 hours, students worked
around-the-clock to develop software for the five
different prizes at stake: best design, most technically
challenging app, best overall app, best rookie team, and
best humanitarian technology. The final prize was a
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new category for 2017 backed by competition sponsor
Education Above All’s “Protect Education in Insecurity
and Conflict” programme.
According to Professor Dan Phelps, the competition
allows students to “demonstrate everything they
have learned … tackle one of the challenges … and
apply their skills to help solve that problem in a real
world context.”
The “best humanitarian technology” prize challenged
teams to consider the particular issue of children’s safety
in conflict-zone schools. The winning team was awarded
for innovative software that predicts regions where an
attack is imminent or possible by collecting information
and specific trend data from the web.
The competition is another example of Qatar’s
commitment to a digital future, encouraging students
to use technology and innovation to solve pressing
global issues.