Accelerated Learning with Hajj Hackathon
Inspiration to Gear Up for Challenge
Hajj is the largest annual gathering in the world. And the urge for improvement is never an ending thing. Approximately 2 million muslims during Hajj & 7 million during Umrah from 168+ countries around the world convene in the Religious City “Mecca” to perform Hajj . This Hackathon offered the opportunity as well as the challenge to craft a simple innovative solution.
It’s been pitched as the world’s largest Hackathon & Saudi’s kept their promise by entering each of us in the Guinness World Record Book.
Solution Brainstorming
From financial solutions, travel/accommodation, public health to waste management, transportation, food resources etc, there are a wide range of issues in these areas which need to be addressed to improve convenience of Hajj pilgrims.
We chose the “Travel & Accommodations Arrangements” where one of the obstacle is obtaining the correct and complete information surrounding travel and accommodation. We also focussed on building a platform which will help pilgrims to find multiple vendors, including checking out reviews in a hassle free manner.
Foreign & Saudi Nationals generally say in Arabic- Jeddah Ghair,” which translates to “Jeddah is different.”
Gearing up for Challenge
Jeddah is the most open city of Saudi Arabia & major hub for travellers coming for Hajj/Umrah. It welcomed all participants for Hackathon with zeal & the city was all-set for the world-event to be staged.
Jeddah International Exhibition & Convention Center(JIECC) hosted the Hajj Hackathon with 3000+ Participants, 1000+ Teams from 100+ Countries. With the condition of a maximum of 5 participants in a single team, it was a great networking opportunity to participants coming from different background to club together to form a team.
Solving Challenges through Technology
With common intention to bring solution for Hajj Pilgrims, participants worked day & night from 1st August 4pm to 3rd August 6am preceding with the idea pitching stage.
Elevator Pitch
Every team was given 2 minutes to Pitch an idea which is later accessed by Judges for the next 2 minutes.
Road to Finale
Pitching Round one pulled out 90 out of 1000 teams & Round two resulted in top-20 teams.
Code Assessments were done to verify whether these team had implemented and coded their idea.
Jury identified the top-10 ideas which made it into the Road to Finale.
Finale
Each team were given 5-minutes to present their idea followed by a 5-min assessment which was conducted by innovative leaders such Steve Wozinac(Apple), Jimmy Wales(Wikipedia) etc.
It’s been pitched as the world’s largest Hackathon & Saudi kept their promise by entering each of us in the Guinness World Record Book. In addition, they showed a new era with women empowerment when the Saudi young women, who developed the Turjuman instant translation app to facilitate communication by pilgrims from all over the world through QR Code Scanning, took home the first place prize of SAR1,000,000 (approx. Dh1m) after a very strong competition with a total of nine teams.
Accomplishments
Accelerated Learning: The key objective such an event is producing results quickly and efficiently. Super-imposed with team coordination in self-enabled high pressure not to mention an amazing environment.
Team Tajawal scored in Accelerated Learning without making into Finals.
Live the Twitter Journey from Day Zero to Final:
Gearing up-
Opportunities it present-
Some exciting moments before the action begins-
And the Journey Begins-
Huge Huge Huge
The Finals
And then the answer Why?
