AMMAN: Amazon on Tuesday announced the top-three winners of its Jordanian teckathon event, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The Amazon Teckathon is a three-day virtual hackathon, challenging university students in Jordan to come up with creative and hi-tech software solutions for daily lifestyle issues.
The second edition of the hackathon, which took place from July 26 to 28 and drew students from 20 universities, received 114 submissions and encouraged those taking part to develop, design, code, and build innovative software solutions.
Each team then presented its project to a panel of Amazon experts and entries were judged based on software implementation, idea, and presentation.
Challenge winner Ammar Shanir, from Jordan University of Science and Technology, received a $10,000 scholarship from Amazon for BiLy, an app that converts speech to text in real time while distinguishing between various languages, including Arabic and English, to provide the most appropriate word.
He said: “As a university student, I was extremely privileged to be given the opportunity to take part in the Amazon Teckathon this year.
“The hackathon was all-encompassing as it put my team’s creative thinking, programming skills, and time management to the test. 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,” Shanir added.
Second place went to Abdulrahman Wasfi and Layan Al-Himsi, from the Princess Sumaya University for Technology, for Nedz, an app using artificial intelligence and machine learning to better understand the needs of people with autism.
Shahed Nabeel and Mohammed Al-Khateeb secured third spot with their Detector project, another app, this time utilizing AI to detect skin cancer, and provide a detailed evaluation of type and accuracy by simply taking a picture.
Amazon provided the second- and third-place winners with scholarships worth $7,000 and $5,000, respectively.
The company also recognized winners in a special category for best customer-centric solution in the Middle East and North Africa region. This was won by Abdelrahman Al-Sabbagh and Faris Al-Humsi for developing Saiph, an AI searching system that thoroughly examines files and documents for quality. It considers multiple factors, such as identifying relevant synonyms, repetition, misspellings, and dialect, to efficiently share results that meet desired criteria.
Jordanian Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Ahmad Al-Hanandeh has actively supported initiatives aimed at encouraging and inspiring Jordan’s youth to advance their skills in the ever-expanding field of technology and programming.
He expressed his delight at Amazon’s decision to bring back the virtual hackathon event for a second year, highlighting the importance of sharing knowledge and experience in order to create the technology leaders of the future.
Mahmoud Obeidat, Amazon’s country manager for Jordan, said: “This year, we were once again very impressed with the level of innovation, skill, and dedication brought to the Amazon Teckathon event by participating students.
“Our second edition of the event truly encouraged customer-centric thinking, working with our customer obsession guiding principle in mind, and it has been inspiring to see students embrace the Amazon culture while delivering an exceptional level of competition during the hackathon.”
