Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing Arab world fuelled by the demands of young people for jobs and economic opportunity, Silatech and the Applied Innovation Institute, in partnership with Ooredoo, have launched the first Arab Mobile App Challenge. Teams of up to six members, under 35 years of age, will work to develop applications (known as “apps”) for mobile phones that address needs in the education, health, entertainment or employability/entrepreneurship sectors. The winning teams will receive a prize of USD 50,000, USD 30,000 and USD 20,000 respectively for first, second and third position.

The main objectives of the competition are to introduce young Arabs to the concept of entrepreneurship and the path to business start-up, as well as opportunities for enhancing employability skills particularly relevant to the tech space. Teams will go through an acceleration process, opportunities for multiple workshops, and also be assisted by an experienced mentor who will provide coaching and advice in how to turn good ideas into viable businesses. Starting as a pilot challenge this year in Tunisia, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the intent is to roll the contest out to the entire region in the future.

The global mobile app market is growing at very high speed and the Middle East mobile apps market is in line with this especially due to a high regional uptake of mobile phones. Though the region is well placed to benefit from mobile app opportunities, the number of commercially successful Arabic apps has been relatively few. The Arab Mobile App Challenge is a step toward developing the region’s underutilized potential in this regard.

Silatech and the Applied Innovation Institute are the founding partners of the Arab Mobile App Challenge, and Ooredoo has joined forces in the early stages as a Platinum Regional Sponsor supporting this initiative. The Regional Partners include Microsoft, Pearson, Yahoo, Tam Projects, Wamda, MIT Enterprise Forum, Potenial, and ArabNet. Country hosts are the Queen Rania Centre for Entrepreneurship (Jordan), Sup’Com (Tunisia), International Medical Centre and Saudi Telecom (KSA), The Hub (UAE) and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar.

According to Silatech CEO Dr. Tarik Yousef, “Technology and entrepreneurship are tools which offer enormous potential to empower young people with greater control over their lives and their well-being. The Arab Mobile App Challenge provides an exciting platform that combines these concepts in a fun way, and we look forward to seeing the innovative ideas that emerge from it.”

According to Applied Innovation Institute Board Member Dr. Paris de l’Etraz, “Apps are growing much much faster than the Internet ever did, and we need to make sure that the Arab world is ready to take up this challenge, which is bound to change the way we interact with our world in the future. We need more Arabic content and that is a major goal of this Challenge.”

Previously Ooredoo and Silatech collaborated on the development and launch of Tunisiana’s “Najja7ni Employment,” the region’s first career-related mobile service. Ooredoo is now expanding its partnership with Silatech on more mobile-related initiatives aimed at enhancing youth employability.

Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo, said: “Across the Middle East and North Africa, about half of our customers are young people, and they want to use technology to overcome challenges in their lives and achieve their ambitions. Supporting the Arab Mobile App Challenge and extending our partnership with Silatech demonstrates our commitment to promoting human growth, by encouraging mobile innovation and entrepreneurship. We hope this contest taps into the incredible creativity and imagination that we know the young people of this region have to offer.”

Each participating country will host a local “Mobile App Challenge,” with three finalist teams from each country participating in the regional finals, to be hosted in Qatar in February 2014. One team from each of the five countries will then be selected in Qatar, allowing five regional teams to compete against other international teams at the annual international Mobile World Congress finals held in Barcelona on February 24-27, 2014.

For more information about the Arab Mobile App Challenge, see www.arabmobilechallenge.com.