Qai, a global technology company headquartered in Qatar, and Hugging Face, a leading technology platform and community for AI, have hosted Qai’s first hackathon event, bringing together over 140 engineers, students and researchers from across Doha’s technology community.Held recently at M7 (Msheireb Cultural Forum), the event saw 45 teams develop working AI prototypes that address a challenge in Qatar leveraging open-source models and tools available on Hugging Face. Participants were supported throughout the weekend with technical workshops and mentoring from Qai and Hugging Face engineers. On the final day, teams pitched their projects to a panel of judges from both organisations. Final projects spanned healthcare, nutrition, Arabic language, environment, cybersecurity, and drone technology.Team YOLO, an all-female team of students from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), took first place for their innovative AI build, AquaGuard, which offers an early warning system that protects Qatar’s desalination plants from pollution (oil spills) and red tides. Team All you need is a Hug (second place) and team Gradient Descent (third place) also received special recognition for their respective AI projects; Qalaf, a historical depiction and development comparison between Qatar in 1908 and present-day, leveraging travel manuscripts accessed from Qatar National Library; and Rasad, an AI drone monitoring and tracking solution. The winning teams received Hugging Face and Qai compute credits. Participants were drawn from Qatar-based universities, organisations and startups. The hackathon supports Qai’s goal of engaging and nurturing leading AI talent in Qatar. It brings together Qai’s mission to enable and scale trusted AI with Hugging Face’s global open-source community, with the shared aim of building a strong pipeline of AI talent in the region.Asmaa Fikree, Chief Strategy officer at Qai, said: “Over three days at M7, we saw what Qatar’s talent can achieve with the right tools, mentors and partners to catapult ideas into working prototypes. Developing talent is central to what Qai is building, and we look forward to seeing these teams take their ideas to the next level and to continue supporting the ecosystem with similar initiatives.”Sayak Paul, senior researcher at Hugging Face said: “We're very excited to be in this part of the world for the very first time to do an event. From day one, we have been seeing and feeling the energy from the participants, which is exactly what we anticipated. Hopefully, this is the start of something collaborative and meaningful. We're grateful to the Qai team for working with us to make this happen. We'll hopefully be back for more.”Members of team YOLO commented: “We have really enjoyed the whole Hackathon01 experience. We spent a long time trying to find a real problem that we could try to solve. Once we found one and thoroughly researched it, we were very motivated. Water purity is incredibly important to life in the Gulf region. Our team built a real solution for a real problem in Qatar, and we are very proud of it.”

Commercial Bank has received four accolades at the ‘World's Best Digital Bank Awards 2026’ by Global Finance. In corporate banking, Commercial Bank was named ‘Best Trade Finance Services’ in both Qatar and the Middle East, while in retail banking, it was recognised as ‘Most Innovative Digital Bank’ in the Middle East and Qatar.Commercial Bank Group CEO Stephen Moss said, “We believe technology should deliver practical value for our customers, whether that means helping businesses manage complex trade transactions or making everyday banking simpler and more convenient. These awards reflect our progress across both corporate and retail banking, in Qatar and across the region. We will continue to build on that progress, with a clear focus on our customers and the trust they place in us.”In corporate banking, the ‘Best Trade Finance Services’ awards reflect Commercial Bank’s digital tools for importers and exporters across the Gulf, enabling clients to track document status, cargo releases, and payment obligations online in real time.Fahad Badar, EGM, Chief Wholesale and International Banking officer at Commercial Bank, said: “Trade finance depends on speed, accuracy and trust. We continue to invest in tools that give our clients greater visibility over their transactions and help them manage the process more efficiently. Being named best in Qatar and the Middle East reflects the work our teams are doing to support businesses and their international trade needs.”In consumer banking, the awards reflect Commercial Bank’s focus on delivering a connected digital experience through the CBQ Mobile App and Internet Banking.Shahnawaz Rashid, EGM and head of Retail Banking at Commercial Bank, said: “We are honoured to be recognised as the ‘Most Innovative Digital Bank’ in Qatar and the Middle East. At Commercial Bank, our vision is to make banking effortless by seamlessly integrating it into our customers’ everyday lives. “Through continuous innovation, we are enhancing convenience, accessibility, and personalisation across our digital channels. This award is a reflection of our teams’ dedication and inspires us to continue setting new benchmarks for customer experience and digital banking excellence.”Commercial Bank stated that it will continue to invest in digital banking across corporate and retail banking, as customer needs evolve.