Mobile Application Contest 2013 concludes with unique apps and wide participation from GCC

University students from all over the UAE and the region participated in the competition, which requires competitors to create innovative culturally focused applications that are designed to run on devices like smart phones and tablets.

This year's competition was organized by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Khalifa University in partnership with Khalifa Fund and sponsored by Emirates Advanced Investments (EAI), the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and Samsung.

MAC also offered students the opportunity to participate in special training courses on Android, IOS/iPhone, and Window Phone SDK 8.0. These training courses were offered to all the participants free of charge. Samsung also offered free training on their Smart TV, S-Pen Technology and All-Share APIs.

Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Khalifa University's Executive Vice President, said, "We are glad to see wide participation from students from the GCC region this year. I hope to see wider participation from other Arab countries in the coming years. I would also like to congratulate all the winners of the MAC2013 competition. Winning a contest like this puts the students in the spotlight of top companies, as well as, giving them the knowledge and ability to pursue a successful career in this blooming field."

He added, "I would like to emphasize Khalifa University's commitment towards the higher education sector in the UAE, which has become the regional center for technological research and innovation. In addition, we are dedicated to providing superior academic programmes, advanced technologies and resources to create a knowledgeable and well-rounded generation that contributes to the Abu Dhabi 2030 vision in building a knowledge-based economy."

H.E. Abdullah Saeed Al Darmaki the Chief Executive officer of Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development and the sponsor of this competition congratulates the winners. "The competition is a good opportunity to support the innovations and achievements in its early stages. I have strong faith in the students' capabilities to be an entrepreneur in the technology sector field and to participate in developing the application of mobile phones in a positive way," said Al Darmaki.

"This is the third year in raw Khalifa Fund sponsor this competition, also the Fund was a member in the juries. The unique thing about this year competition is that Khalifa Fund organized a workshop in order to assist the participants to transfer their ideas and programmes into commercial projects," explained Al Darmaki.

"Khalifa Fund put in its priority supporting the programmes, plans and policies are targeting to improve the innovation and creativity among Emiratis," added Al Darmaki.

Khalifa University students also designed two Smart TV applications; namely instaTV and MovieDirectory. instaTV works in a very similar way to the infamous Instagram app on smart phones, where users are able to view and share photos via smart TV devices.

MovieDirectory application offers detailed information on movies and content watched on the TV using the internet connection. Samsung has plans to adopt these applications and rewarded the designers with a Smart TV and a smart phone, in recognition of their hard work and creativity.