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Developers Provide Hajj Solutions in Saudi First Hackathon

JEDDAH – In a bid to make hajj journey safer and easier for millions of pilgrims, thousands of software professionals have completed in the Saudi Arabia’s first-ever hackathon, developing ideas to locate people lost during the rituals and helping medics to reach those in need of medical attention.

“We aim to upgrade the experience of hajj for all pilgrims from all over the world,” Nouf al-Rakan, chief executive of the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Sunday.

“This (hackathon) will enrich that experience, will give us plenty of solutions and ideas that we can actually adapt and invest in,” she told AFP.

Al-Rakan was speaking as Saudi Arabia concluded its first-ever hackathon which explored high-tech solutions to prevent a repeat of past calamities in the annual hajj pilgrimage.

Running through three days, 3000 developers from around the world ate, slept, and worked to provide answers on how to avert future deadly disasters.

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A group of five Saudi, Yemeni and Eritrean women, all in their 20s and covered head-to-toe in the Islamic niqab, hunched over their laptops to design an app for paramedics to speedily reach people in need of medical attention using geo-tracking technology.

If multiple emergencies arise at once, the women hoped their app would help prioritize the most pressing cases.

Two Pakistani professionals paired up with two East Asian students to develop a “virtual leash” application to locate relatives lost in the sea of humanity by using bluetooth wristbands.

Four Saudi men sought to design sensors for garbage bins that would alert cleaners when they are full to avert any hygiene scare.

Another group of Saudi women scrawled algorithms and programming codes on a whiteboard to design an app to help non-Arabic speakers translate instructions into multiple languages without an internet connection.

Saudi Arabia’s first hackathon is believed to be a bid from the Kingdom to avoid disasters during hajj, with a series of deadly disasters over the years have prompted criticism of the kingdom’s management of the annual pilgrimage.

“I imagine the Saudi authorities are very anxious to avoid a repeat of past mishaps that could reflect badly on the ‘modernising’ narrative around Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute in the US.

“For the Saudi ruling elite, its custodianship of the two holy sites is arguably more sensitive this year in the wake of the heightened tension in the region,” Ulrichsen said.