Sohar Hackathon registrations open to all
MADIHA ASIF madiha@timesofoman.com
MUSCAT: Registrations for Sohar Hackathon is open to all ages until January 3, 2019, with a chance of winning OMR2,000 by presenting innovative ideas and solutions in the field of logistics.
The event, which will take place from January 10 to 12, 2019, at the International Maritime College Oman in Sohar, aims to host 100 local and regional participants forming teams from different backgrounds that include programmers, entrepreneurs, marketers and problem solvers.
“The registration is onlinebased and we will be selecting participants while looking into different criteria. We will be having 20 groups with a participation of 3-5 people in each, and they will be selected after screening and filtering the application,” said Ibrahim Al Bakri, Director General of Human Capital at Asyad.
“There is no registration fee involved and the platform is open to both Omanis and expats residing in the country having skills to not only determine the problem but also to provide with solutions in logistics,” Al Bakri added.
The participants will be supervised by 20 mentors throughout the competition, he further said.
“Through the engagement with different national industrial companies, we found that there are various issues that could be tackled by innovation, research and development. Most of the issues we discovered focused in Sohar as it has one of the international ports, free zone and various industrial companies. So we thought Sohar is the best location to test all the innovation and bring everyone together to identify problems and provide solutions,” Al Bakri explained.
He continued saying that it is inline with Oman’s Logistic Strategy which focus on developing Oman as both regional and global hub. “We can’t achieve that objective without having a competitive setup in terms of research and development as well as technological trends and initiatives.”
Al Bakri added that participants will compete to offer solutions for Sohar in various sectors. “Hackathon will not only focus on logistics but will also integrate with sectors like tourism and environment. We have to look at it not from one perspective but also from the ecosystem itself. We don’t only want to come up with a solution but add value to various sectors.”
Speaking with Times of Oman, Asila Al Zidi, Director of Admin and Finance at the Smart City Platform said that the event welcomes people with no age limit and students can also be a part of it.
“The event will gather teams of programmers, designers, developers, data analysts, entrepreneurs, innovators and even students to promote a diverse approach to developing ideas.
“The first runner-up at the event will be gifted an amount of OMR2000 with second-runner up taking OMR1500, and lastly, OMR1000 will be given to the third-runner up,” Al Zidi added.