An all-female Qatari team has won the top prize at the 2020 Hackathon competition organised by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q).
“Tapped” is the name of the winning app developed by CMU-Q students Maryam al-Darwish, Haya al-Kaabi, Haya al-Kuwari and Buthayna Almulla.
The team’s invention takes accurate body measurements for tailoring by using the camera on a smartphone. They used a machine learning library called PoseNet to create the app. The team of graduating seniors is multi-disciplinary, with al-Kaabi from the Biological Sciences Programme, al-Darwish and al-Kuwari from the Computer Science Programme, and Almulla from the Information Systems Programme.
“The CarnegieApps Hackathon began in 2013, and since then, it has become an event that represents the true spirit of CMU-Q,” said Nui Vatanasakdakul, associate teaching professor of information systems and the faculty adviser for the event. “We use this event to showcase students’ abilities and innovation beyond the classroom boundary.”
There were 19 teams that competed at the eighth edition of the student-led competition, including innovators from CMU-Q, College of the North Atlantic – Qatar, Qatar University and Texas A&M University at Qatar.
In an intense competition run over 24 hours, teams were asked to push their limits and harness their creative energy to produce an app.
This year’s Hackathon was sponsored by Ooredoo Qatar, who provided prizes, judges and mentors for the competition. Ooredoo also sponsored a category, the Ooredoo Special Theme for Innovations in AI and 5G. Ahmed al-Mohannadi, senior director, business development and innovation, at Ooredoo, participated as a judge and presented the Ooredoo award.