A team made up of four young Saudi women won the top prize at the debut Hajj Hackathon. Held over the weekend in Jeddah, the hackathon saw a total of 2,950 people in attendance, including designers and developers, coming together to brainstorm and develop ideas to help better the experience during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
The winning team took out the one million Saudi riyals thanks to their translation app, called Turjuman, which will help pilgrims to translate signs into their own native language offline. It is facilitated through the inclusion of QR codes on signage, and was created during the 36-hour-long final stage of the event.
In second place and third place were two all-male teams who developed the ‘Hajj Wallet’ whereby pilgrims can use their phone as their wallet during Hajj and ‘Roaa’, an app that helps to map a user’s exact location.
The Hajj Hackathon is the largest event of its kind, and, according to the Khaleej Times broke a Guinness World Record for most participants in a software development jam. Its judging panel included Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple.
Mabrook to the winners!
Now, find out how Apple made it to the USD$1 trillion mark this weekend.
