The seventh edition of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar’s Hackathon 2019 competition, the student-led competition, concluded after 11 teams of young innovators participated in the round-the-clock race to create an app.
After spending 24 hours developing an app, each team had six minutes the project to the panel of judges.
The top prize for Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar’s Hackathon 2019 competition went to a time management tool for students. The app, which was developed by CMU-Q students, uses a smart sorting algorithm that manages and sorts tasks for busy students, and uses advanced machine learning to find and retrieve answers to questions using speech recognition.
“The Hackathon format is intensive, with a tight timeline and high levels of competition,” said Dan Phelps, associate teaching professor of information systems and the faculty adviser for the event.
“This is excellent experience for students who are interested in high tech because they learn to harness their creative energy, collaborate in teams and produce an app in a time-pressured environment.”
This year’s Hackathon was sponsored by Siemens in Qatar, who provided judges and mentors for the competition and presented prizes to the four winning teams. As one of the world’s largest technology companies, Siemens has applied for more patents in 2018 than any other company in Europe, as reported by the European Patent Office.
The Hackathon was an opportunity to engage with Qatar’s emerging developers.
Adrian Wood, the company’s CEO in Qatar and one of the Hackathon judges, was impressed with the efforts of the young techs. “Knowing the potential that a hackathon can bring to the tech industry sets the bar very high for participants, and we can expect to hear about the next big app from an event like this,” he said.
The panel included specialists from Siemens, CMU-Q and Ooredoo.
