Huawei picks winners of inaugural Innovation Competition for Middle East

A team from Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan has won first place in the inaugural Huawei Innovation Competition for the Middle East region, and the top cash prize of $20,000. Their teacher, Ammar Odeh, was named Best Tutor and was also rewarded by Huawei.

The Huawei Innovation Competition requires undergraduate students and their teachers to design applications leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and big data. Ten universities from nine countries in the region took part in this year’s competition. Each team consisted of three students and one teacher.

During the regional final, each team presented their work to the panel of expert industry judges, with the winners determined based on metrics such as innovative ideas, user experience, industry prospect, model quality, and the difficulty of their work.

Read: UAE winners of the Huawei Middle East ICT Competition picked

“In 2020, we launched the Innovation Competition based on the Huawei Atlas 200DK, and we are very glad to see all the participating teams developing excellent projects that are imaginative and innovative,” said Li Xiangyu, vice president of Huawei Middle East. “Some teams picked the most popular topic of Covid-19 automatic detection and prevention, some tried to improve health and wellbeing with a remarkable outcome by optimizing the AI baby care. I appreciate the desire of these students and teachers from the Middle East to contribute to our world.”

Other category winners included the team from the University of Bahrain, who took home the ‘Best Technology Award’; the University of Anbar in Iraq who won the ‘Best Model Award’; and the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon who won in the ‘Best Innovation’ category.