Palestinian teens reach finals of Silicon Valley app pitch
NABLUS (AP) — Four Palestinian high school friends are heading to California this week to pitch their mobile application about fire prevention to Silicon Valley’s tech leaders, after winning a slot in the finals of a worldwide competition among more than 19,000 teenage girls.
The team of Tamara Awaysa, Wassan al-Sayyed, Massa Halawa and Yamama Shakaa of An Najah University in Nablus, West Bank’s second largest city, produced a virtual reality game, “Be a firefighter,” to teach fire prevention skills.
The subject is particularly relevant in some parts of the Palestinian territories, such as the Gaza Strip, where a border blockade by Israel and Egypt, imposed after the takeover of the Islamic militant group Hamas in 2007, has led to hours-long daily power cuts and the widespread use of candles and other potential fire hazards.
For the 11th graders from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the ticket of admission to the World Pitch Summit signals a particularly dramatic leap.
They come from middleclass families that value education, but opportunities have been limited because of the omnipresent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prevailing norms of patriarchy in their traditional society and typically underequipped schools with outdated teaching methods.
“We are excited to travel in a plane for the first time in our lives, meet new people and see a new world,” team member Wasan al-Sayed, 17, said.
“We are excited to be in the most prestigious (information technology) community in the world, Silicon Valley, where we can meet interesting people and see how the new world works,” she added.
Twelve teams made it to the finals of the “Technovation Challenge” in San Jose, California, presenting apps that tackle problems in their communities.
The Palestinian teens are competing in the senior division against teams from Egypt, the United States, Mexico, India and Spain, for scholarships of up to $15,000.