GUST Wins at 5th Annual Carnegie Mellon University 24-hour hackathon in Qatar
- 15 teams from 4 countries competed in 5 categories
- GUST Senior team won first place in Best App Design category
Kuwait City, XX February 2017: One of GUST’s teams that participated at the 5th Annual 24-Hour Carnegie Mellon University Hackathon won first place for the Best App Design. The competition, which was held on the 27th and 28th January, took place at the university campus in Education City, Doha.
The CarnegieApps Hackathon, which is organized by CarnegieApps, a student-led club at Carnegie Mellon Qatar, is an annual programming competition in which university students work in teams in a 24-hour race to build mobile applications, web applications, or games. This year’s event was open to undergraduate students from all majors from universities worldwide. A total of 55 students from 15 teams from 4 countries competed in 5 categories: Best Humanitarian Technology, Best Overall App, Best Rookie Team, Best Design, and Best Technical Challenge.
Computer Science Department Head, Dr. Taher Ali, said: “GUST was the only Kuwaiti university participating in the event. The event provided a great opportunity for our students to put their learned skills to the test, and to meet and share ideas. Furthermore, our students demonstrated exceptional team work, and learned how to work under stress where they were faced over 36 sleepless hours of work. Finally, students also benefited from networking between students and mentors, which will prove to be of great value in their future endeavors and careers.”
The second GUST team was not able to win any of the categories. However, the idea of their application and their work was appreciated by the judges.
The senior team that won the Best Design Award members are: Osamah Al Jassar, Ahmad Al Fulaij, Abdullah Al Munayae, Hamad Hassan (College of Engineering, Kuwait University), and Dr. Taher Ali (Mentor).
The participating junior team members are: Ziad Ali, Saud Al Roomi, Ali Al Mousawi, Abdullah Al Munayes (MIS Department), Dr. Taher Ali (Mentor).
The Computer Science Department at GUST continuously pursues opportunities that encourage students to apply their imagination and creativity in technological innovations, applying what they learn in class to make a difference and address real-world issues. By participating in this high profile competition, students were able to exhibit the high standard of their performance and enhance their skills in the emerging field of Computer Science. Other competitions which GUST’s Computer Science students participated in include the 2016 Microsoft Imagine Cup, where they won 1st place in the Computer Games category, and Kuwait Collegiate Programming Contest, where they won.
