Cairo: A Saudi female team has won the top prize of the Middle East’s largest hackathon, which wrapped up in Jeddah on Friday, Saudi media reported.
A total of 2,950 developers from around the world attended the three-day Haj Hackathon, which was aimed at using high-tech solutions to enhance the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
The first prize of one million Saudi riyals was awarded to the Turjuman team, Arabic for translator, after they developed a phone application that allows the user to have a translated version of the Haj signs into his/her native language.
The second prize of 500,000 Saudi riyals went to the Haj Wallet team with an application turning the phone into a wallet during the Haj by allowing the user to deposit money from Visa card into it, and then use it to pay for different goods and services.
Around two million Muslims flock to Saudi Arabia annually to perform the Haj rituals, scheduled for later this month.
The Hackathon was organised by the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security, Programming and Drones, an initiative that seeks to fulfil the objectives of the kingdom’s “Vision 2030” national economic development and diversification strategy unveiled in 2016.
Categories of the competition were related to the Haj, featuring food health, finance, transport, travel, accommodation, communications and crowd management.
The Haj Hackathon was aimed at emphasising Saudi Arabia’s commitment to becoming a regional and global leader in technical innovation and developing both an environment and infrastructure beneficial to the country’s young people, according to organisers.
The Haj Hackathon broke the Guinness World Record for most participants in a software event.
