International Students Unveil Innovative Mobile and Web Applications at NYUAD

Hosted by the NYUAD Institute, the annual International Hackathon brought together students and professional mentors from over a dozen countries to develop mobile and web applications for social good in the Arab world, over April 10-12, 2015.

Press Release

A wearable device to monitor construction worker health was ranked first at NYU Abu Dhabi’s fourth annual International Hackathon for Social Good in the Arab World on Sunday.

The winning idea, called Hackee.me, can produce reports of worker health conditions for governments, and warn workers if they're getting dehydrated.

Hackee.me was developed by a team of local and international students including: Farah Shamout, NYU Abu Dhabi, Jordan; Martin Slosarik, NYU Abu Dhabi, Slovakia; Tony Lin, NYU Abu Dhabi, Taiwan; Nora Benson, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, USA; Agoune Juba, Ecole nationale Supérieure d’Informatique, Algeria; Badreddine Zebbich, Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineering IGEE Ex.INELEC, Algeria; Hajrah Jahan, Manipal University, UAE; Mohamed-Zakariae EL KHDIME, Ibn Tofail University, Morocco; Hassan Bello, University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE; Dora Palfi, NYU Abu Dhabi, Hungary; Saif Rehman, University of Sharjah, UAE.

Hosted by the NYUAD Institute, the annual International Hackathon brought together students from around the world to work closely with mentors and develop mobile and web applications for social good in the Arab world.

Translate Tube, a crowd sourced voiceover translation service for existing video content, was ranked second. While Eco-Eco, an open world Farmville-like game where resources can only be earned through doing real-life environmental activities came third.

Sana Odeh, affiliated professor of Computer Science at NYUAD, said: “We are immensely proud of these students who conceptualized and developed ground-breaking mobile and web applications in just three days. The creativity and innovation demonstrated by our students and mentors highlights our ongoing commitment towards furthering technological innovation in the region.”

From sharing and generating ideas to learning new platforms and programming languages, this event has provided students from across the globe with the opportunity to experience the full cycle of creating a tech startup.


About NYU Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and research campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly selective undergraduate curriculum across the disciplines with a world center for advanced research and scholarship. The university enables its students in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, and arts to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from over 115 countries and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.