Higher Colleges of Technology UAE Educational IT Challenge 2008 a success

The event is under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology, and has been organized by HCT for the past eight years.

His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan provided the opening address at the ceremony and congratulated the finalists and winners for their achievements. He stated that the finalists' projects confirm how technological innovation can change the learning process. "The Higher Colleges of Technology, by organizing this competition, demonstrates its role in advancing educational initiatives and promoting effectiveness and best practices in our education system," stated H.E. Sheikh Nahayan.

"The IT Challenge is built on the premise that information technology fuels educational innovation, and that the continued success of our schools and colleges greatly depends on our ability to forge a broad-based collaboration among higher education, industry, federal and local governments, and everyone who supports our national goal of attaining excellence in education."

A total of 631 projects were submitted by teachers, students, secondary schools, tertiary institutions and businesses. The highest number of entries came from students with a total of 526. Categories for this year's competition include "Special Needs," "Organizational/ Business," "E-Commerce," "Secondary Schools," "Colleges/Universities," "UAE Nationals," and "Mobile Applications." Projects submitted covered topics including teaching applications, communication tools, teaching people with special needs, road safety, tourism, the environment, the history of the UAE, mobile applications and online courses.

More countries were represented in this year's IT Challenge than in previous years, with a total of 58 entries from countries such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. Over 500 hundred entries were from the UAE.

"The IT Challenge aims to produce unique projects that use IT in an educational setting and to encourage teamwork, innovation and advancement as well as the sharing of new ideas in various areas of education," stated Dr. Tayeb Kamali, Vice Chancellor of HCT.

His Excellency Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General and Board Member of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), and Chair of the jury panel for the IT Challenge, thanked the jury for its excellent work in choosing the finalists and winners. He also congratulated the finalists and winners for their outstanding work which brought them to this level of the competition. "Only 8% of the projects submitted were chosen as finalists," stated H.E. Al Ghanim.

"Such a percentage reflects the high standards required by the competition under specific judging criteria related to innovation, community, value, and social impact and future. I would like to tell the finalists that whether you win or not, the fact that your projects have been chosen to compete in the final stages is in itself a winning token."

Dr. Willy Chiu, Vice President of High Performance On Demand Solutions (HiPODS) at IBM Software Group Strategy, also spoke to the audience. HiPODS is an elite technology group which delivers end-to-end integrated solutions using technologies from the entire IBM portfolio. Dr. Chiu's group is currently working on the Blue Cloud project, a leading cloud computing solution based on joint work with Google. Cloud computing is an emerging approach to shared infrastructure in which large pools of systems are linked together to provide IT services. Dr. Chiu noted the importance of the UAE Educational IT Challenge, stating that the competition illustrates the technological advancement that HCT uses and highlights the role that HCT plays in spreading the use of technology in the community.

Following Dr. Chiu's speech, His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan presented the awards to the winners and praised them for their use of creativity and innovation in the design of their projects. The winners were very excited to win this prestigious competition.

The winners of the UAE Educational IT Challenge 2008 are as follows:

Best UAE National Teacher Project
Qurtas v2.2 (Banknotes Database) -- Al Maarif Secondary School, Sharjah
Mohammed Ali Alhousani

Best UAE National Student Project
A Man-in-the-Middle Attack Tool for Switched Networks -- College of Information Technology, UAE University, Al Ain
Muna Muneer Otaibi
Wadha Rashid Tamimi

Best Organizational Project
Enhanced Learning and Training Center, HP Advanced Technology Lab -- Abu Dhabi Men's College, Abu Dhabi
Mohammed Arif Amin
Nafith Salama
Farrukh Zaheer
Sanjeev Ananth
Mohamed Ali Mohamed Eid Aldahham Al Mansoori
Imran Abdulla Hasan Abdulla Al Marzoogi
Naser Mohamed Ahmed Sultan Al Sheikh

Best E-Commerce Project
Oman Government Portal -- Majan College, Oman
Maha Mohammed Abdallah Al Bulushi

Best Mobile Applications Project
Smart Office System with Mobile Phone Control -- Preston University, Ajman
Zainab Raheed

Best College or University Teacher Project
Learning 2.0 -- Zayed University, Dubai
Janet Martin

Best Secondary Teacher Project
Qurtas v2.2 (Banknotes Database) -- Al Maarif Secondary School, Dubai
Mohammed Ali Alhousani

Al Reem & That Al Salassel Web Cam Community Link -- That Al Salassel, Al Ain
Aisha Kamis Salem Aldhari

Best College or University Student Project
i-College (An Online College System) -- Higher College of Technology, Muscat, Oman
Jafer Abdul Rahman
Jafer Batcho Al Zidjali

A Man-in-the-Middle Attack Tool for Switched Networks -- College of Information Technology, UAE University, Al Ain
Muna Muneer Otaibi
Wadha Rashid Tamimi

Best Secondary Student Project
Personal Website to Teach Robotics, Photography and Karate, Aswath -- Indian School Al Ghubra (ISG), Oman
Aswath Sridhar

Windows Forums, Benna and Hadi -- Al Majd Indian School, Dubai
Benna Iqbal
Hadi Mohammed

Mind Map -- Sukainah Bint Al Husain Secondary School, Dubai
Hajar Abdul Rahman Al Ansari
Abeer Mohammad Al Janahi

The Innovation Partner Sponsor for this year's UAE Educational IT Challenge is the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). The Platinum Sponsors are Dubai Aluminium (DUBAL) and HP ProCurve Networking. The Gold Sponsor is Ericsson. The Silver Sponsors are National Bank of Dubai, Synergy Professional Services, Union National Bank, and Al Rostamani Group. The support sponsors are DELL and Gulf News Notes.

Abu Dhabi Women's College is part of the Higher Colleges of Technology. All media references to the organization should be noted as the Higher Colleges of Technology's Abu Dhabi Women's College or Abu Dhabi Women's College of HCT. For more information on the college's activities, please visit www.adwc.hct.ac.ae. For more information on the Higher Colleges of Technology, please visit www.hct.ac.ae.