VP ATTENDS ARAB CODERS’ GRADUATION
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, attended the graduation ceremony of the ‘One Million Arab Coders’ initiative in Dubai on Monday. Accompanied by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF); and Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi; Minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future and Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the DFF, Sheikh Mohammed said that coding is a key skill in the knowledge-based economy. —
dubai — One Million Arab Coders Initiative will give its participants chances to be hired by giant tech companies in Dubai, it was announced on Monday.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Monday met over 130 top students of the pan-Arab initiative that he announced last year to equip young Arabs with coding and programing skills, on the sidelines of an event held to honour the participants in the One Million Arab Coders Initiative.
Celebrating over 375,000 young Arab participants in the initiative, Sheikh Mohammed said: “My goal is to reach one million young Arab programers in three years. Coding is language of the future and the most important tool in the knowledge-based economy. We aim to create real opportunities for [programers] in the new world economy through empowering them with programming skills.”
Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), told the media that the 130 coders who attended are from 250 participants who finished their nanodegrees in machine learning and data science across the Arab World. They got connected with tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Facebook in an open day that the foundation organised on Monday.
He added that the participants will also take part in the Dubai Future Accelerators that aims to connect government entities with private sector and international startups to come up with projects that provide solutions for global and local challenges.
“The participants in Dubai today have learned skills that they can use to partner with startups and speed up the projects in place,” said Belhoul. “They will also gain experience and get the chance to apply what they have learned in the programme.”
My goal is to reach one million young Arab programmers in three years. We aim to create real opportunities for [programmers] in the new world economy through empowering them with programming skills.”
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
Initiative in full swing
Since its launch, the initiative has attracted over one million registrations, among which 375,000 participants are in the process of becoming computer literates and software developers. The programme graduated over 22,000
participants so far. Open to people at all ages, the free online platform aims to train web developers, data analyst specialists, web experts and android app gurus.
Belhoul said different courses are offered for nine weeks, which allows the foundation to target one million graduates in a span of two years with the support of over 3,700 tutors and teachers across the Arab World.
Participants can take part in any of the eight cohorts throughout the initiative’s duration with a new journey that starts every three months.
The initiative aims to help Arabs gain new employment opportunities and empower them with the skills needed to contribute to the development of the digital economy.