March 4, 2020,

A team from the American University of Ras Al Khaimah (AURAK) won third place in this year’s Hackathon 3.0 in the United Arab Emirates.

Shouk Ahmed Shehata, Yaman Sufian Albadawi, Safia Saeed Mohamed, Maryam Ahmed Alteneiji and Aneesa Ibrahim Al Redhaei formed the AURAK team and were delighted with their achievement. All are computer science or computer engineering students.

Their competition entry concerned an application that is intended to tackle the problem of obesity and diabetes. “The name is Smart Canteen. It’s for the children and teens to make them live a healthier life,” said Shouk Ahmed Shehata.

The idea is that each student has an account that contains his or her health information taken from the Ministry of Health and Prevention’s ‘Mutabaah’ system. The application would analyze the data and offer the best healthy meal options determined by each student’s situation. They would take their meals in the break by scanning their fingerprint and the dishes would be scanned at the end to check if they finished their meals and they would get points for every finished meal. Reports would be compiled each month on their health.

AURAK hosted the local leg of Hackathon 3.0, part of a nationwide event organized by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).

The theme of the three-day Hackathon was “Data for Happiness and Well Being”. Participants formed teams that competed in analyzing data on happiness-related themes, which included Expo 2020, smart sustainable cities, environment and climate change, world class healthcare, digital transformation, happiness and well-being, security and safety, investing in space, sustainability and integrated infrastructure, and world-class education.

The UAE Hackathon, open to anyone from the public or private sectors, was held across all seven Emirates in the UAE. Participants included entrepreneurs, engineers, thinkers, innovators, problem solvers, and anyone with an imagination to make things better.