Share Story
AMMAN — Amazon on Monday announced the top three winners of the Amazon Teckathon, a three-day virtual hackathon event for university students in Jordan which took place from July 26 - 28.
The hackathon saw students from 20 universities participate, according to a statement from Amazon.
The Teckathon saw 114 projects submitted, where university students were encouraged to develop, design, code, and build innovative software solutions to be presented to a judging panel of Amazon experts through five-minute video presentations.
The judging panel consisted of senior Amazon technical leaders who evaluated each submission based on software implementation, project idea, and project presentation, said the statement.
Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Ahmed Hanandeh has actively supported initiatives aimed at encouraging and inspiring Jordan’s youth to grow in the field of technology and programming.
Hanandeh is pleased to see the virtual hackathonevent brought back for the second year, reinforcing the importance of sharing knowledge and experience required to create the tech leaders of tomorrow.
Ammar Shanir, first-place winner from Jordan University of Science and Technology, receiveda scholarship amount prize of $10,000 from Amazon for his “BiLy” application, an innovative platform that converts speech to text in real time, while distinguishing between various languages, including Arabic and English, to provide the most appropriate word, according to the statement.
Ammar said: “I am so grateful for the entire experience as it has honed my technical and programming skills. This was an unforgettable experience and I’m honored that the expert panel of judges recognized my work."
Mahmoud Obeidat, Country Manager ofAmazon in Jordan, commented: “Congratulations to the Amazon Teckathon2022 winners and all participants for their effort and ingenious software solutions. Several of our technology teams for the region are based out of Amman, a commitment to our recognition of the very strong programming landscape and brilliant talents present in Jordan, which we look forward to continue nurturing.”
Aiming to help improve communication skills between austistic individuals and their respective caregivers, second place winnersAbdullrahman Wasfi & Layan AlHimsi from the University of Princess Sumaya University for Technology created “Nedz”, an application that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to better understand the needs of autistic individuals, noted the statement from Amazon.
Third place recipients Shahed Nabeel and Mohammad Alkhateeb, from the YarmoukUniversity, created “Detector”, an application that uses AI to detect skin cancer, providing a detailed evaluation in terms of type and accuracy by simply taking a picture, the statement said.
The Amazon statement added that the second and third place winners took home scholarships of $7,000 and $5,000, respectively, from Amazon to contribute to their education.
Amazon also recognised winners in one special category, ‘Best Customer Centric Solution for MENA Customers’, which was awarded to Abdel Rahman Al Sabbagh & Faris Al Humsi,who won their own Kindle devices for the creation of “Saiph”.
This AI searching system thoroughly examines files and documents to provide the best possible content. It takes multiple factors into consideration, such as identifying relevant synonyms, repetition, and misspellings and dialect, the statement said.