The third edition of UAE Hackathon 2020, data for happiness and wellbeing, which is organized by Telecommunication Regulatory Authority in cooperation with National Program for Happiness & Wellbeing, was launched in Umm Al Quwain on Tuesday February 11. UAE Hackathon is characterised by the wide interaction and a distinct competitive environment and wide participation by those interested in data analysis, students, teachers, employees and entrepreneurs from government and private sectors.

Dr.Galal Hatem, President of Umm Al Quwain University, said that UAE hackathon reflects the efforts of the state in digital transformation and foreseeing the future and the use of artificial intelligence in developing quality of life, pointing to the participation of Umm Al Quwain University with eight innovative projects, wishing all of them to be among winners. Hatem stated that the participation of university and school students in these events contributes to building the future and reaching innovative solutions through adopting their ideas, which help in upgrading the happiness index.

In the context, Dr. Galal Hatim expected that the third edition of UAE Hackathon to achieve the desired goals, and to add value to what the UAE Hackathon has achieved in the past two sessions.

Reports indicate that the past two editions provided positive results, where 161 inspiring ideas were collected from 414 teams and 3183 competitors to reach 1412 data sets; many government departments in the country benefited from them.

The third edition of UAE Hackathon differs from the previous two due to its relation to Expo 2020, providing innovative and inspiring ideas, in addition to the hackathon support for WSIS, World Summit on the Information Society, supporting the Digital Innovation Center and the providing training to the teams to move from initial ideas to applicable solutions and projects.

Dr. Hani Bakr, Vice President for Academic Affairs, affirmed the university’s keenness to play its societal role in line with the noble goal of providing opportunities for young people to use open data and preparing a series of workshops and various training courses for undergraduate students, in addition to hosting UAQ Hackathon) which will be held in the emirate for a period of three days, from 11 to 13 of February, UAE Month of Innovation, in partnership with Umm Al Quwain smart Government, in order to foresee the future, and serve the national economy.

Salem Al Hosani, Deputy Director General of Information and e-Government Sector, praised the efforts made by the partners and supporters of the third edition of UAE Hackathon in Umm Al Quwain. Al Hosani announced that the third edition of UAE Hackathon is based on 10 main axes, most notably Expo 2020, happiness and wellbeing, Digital transformation, smart cities and sustainability, investment in space, environment and climate change, and other inspiring ideas in various fields.