The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) marked the successful conclusion of the 7th edition of the UAE Hackathon 2024, themed “Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Solutions.” The ceremony, including the announcement of the winners, took place at the University City Hall in Sharjah, in the presence of Sheikh Saud bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Director General of Sharjah Digital Office, H.E. Eng. Majed Sultan Al Mesmar, TDRA Director General, as well as representatives from various government entities and TDRA’s key partners from the government, academic, and private sectors.
The ceremony featured the “Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Solutions” Forum, where TDRA honoured its strategic partners from local digital governments, federal and local government entities, academic institutions including universities and schools, and tech companies from the private sector.
The ceremony commenced with a welcoming speech by H.E. Eng. Majed Sultan Al Mesmar, TDRA Director General, who commended the participants for their dedication and efforts. He said: “The UAE Hackathon was launched to foster innovation and inspire young people to leverage open data, creating innovative solutions to challenges across various fields. Today, this initiative has become a widespread practice among universities and government entities, which enhanced the culture of innovation and digital data analysis, contributing significantly to our national vision, “We the UAE 2031″”.
H.E. Al Mesmar added: “In this year’s edition of the Hackathon, our goal is to contribute to the initiative of zero bureaucracy. We are focusing on two key areas that align with the general directions of the Digital Government Strategy 2025: first, creating a customer-centric digital government, and second, embracing the principle of “digital by design”. This year’s edition has been a resounding success. We have witnessed outstanding solutions and ideas presented, along with an impressive participation rate that reached 2,629 participants, organized into 269 teams across four diverse tracks. These teams have addressed challenges spanning various domains including sustainability, health, education, tourism, and enhancing the wellbeing of all members of society, including people of determination.”
The UAE Hackathon 2024 stood out with the introduction of two distinct types of hackathons: the Ideation Hackathon and the Solutions Hackathon. Participants were divided into four tracks: Rising Stars track for school students, Pioneers track for university students, Entrepreneurs track, and the newly introduced Gov Innovators track.
The journey of the UAE Hackathon 2024 included an integrated training program to support participants in the hackathon four tracks. This program was designed to empower participants with the knowledge, skills, and techniques necessary to achieve the best results and refine their projects in line with hackathon standards, global trends for innovation, excellence, and emerging technologies. The number of inspiring ideas in the UAE Hackathon reached 100, of which 27 won, distributed across the four tracks:
Rising Stars Track
Team “Innovate for the Future” won first place for the project “Psychosocial Support chat Bot”. Team “Hamdan bin Rashid” won second place for project “FireEye”, and team “ThriveVerse” came third for project “ThriveTechs”.
Pioneers Track
Team “Limitless” won the first place, followed respectively by team “Falcon” and team “Rafeq”.
Entrepreneurs Track
Team “HCMS.ai” won first place, followed by team “Unitors” in second place and team “Dakher” in third place.
Gov Innovators
For the first time, in the seventh edition of the UAE Hackathon, the winning teams from the Gov Innovators Track were unveiled, showcasing an impressive array of projects from diverse government entities. Ministry of Justice team won for the idea of virtual legal assistance, and the Dubai Schools Committee team from Emirates Schools Establishment won for the idea of the Aoun application.
