Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Minister of Education, Dr. Azmi Mahafzah, on Tuesday, December 12, 2023 acted as patron at an event to announce the final results of the Electronic Applications Challenge Competition, one of the projects of the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD).
During the event, which was held at Al-Hussein Technical University, Minister Mahafzah presented awards to the winning students in the current cycle of the competition, which focused on traffic awareness.
The winners were Zhahr Al-Saru Secondary School for Girls from the Northern Region, for developing the game Margs's Tasks; Khawla bint Al Azwar Basic School from Balqa in the Central Region for developing the game "Rough Roads", and Karak’s King Abdullah II School for Excellence in the Southern Region for developing a game dubbed “Watchful Driving.” Each first-place winning school will receive a prize, namely, setting up a mini electronic gaming lab inside their respective schools.
KAFD’s Director Mazen Tabbalat said that the App Challenge Competition, launched in 2011, aims to develop students' innovation skills and build their capacities in the field of designing and developing applications and games on modern electronic devices, as well as introducing them to the electronic gaming industry.
Tabbalat noted that since its inception, the competition has provided about 5,800 opportunities for young people from various provinces of the Kingdom in training and capacity building, as well as creating several success stories locally and globally.
Tabbalat stressed that the partnership with the Ministry of Education is one of the most important factors of success for the App competition project. “It greatly contributes to reaching the largest number of students and facilitates their participation in the competition, in addition to our fruitful partnership with Mays Al Ward Foundation, the technical partner of the project, which works hard in training students and building their capacities in the electronic gaming industry.
The Fund’s director noted that the repeated participation of schools in the competition reflects their desire to win the first prize and confirms that the competition has succeeded in creating a spirit of challenge and competition among Jordanian youth and raising community awareness about specializations and professions based on technical education, thereby preparing the workforce needed to meet the requirements of economic and technological growth in Jordan.
He also cited that students' participation in the annual KAFD-hosted Gaming Summit as an opportunity to land jobs and for networking between beneficiaries and local and global companies.
Meanwhile, President of Al-Hussein Technical University Dr. Ismael Al-Hinti said that the App Challenge aligns significantly with the vision of the university as a means to empower youth in various competitions, emphasizing the importance of this KAFD-led project and the significant effort the Fund exerts in this field.
Dr. Al-Hinti noted that the university recently launched a two-year program to develop e-gaming, executed by a number of local partners and specialists in this industry, adding that the program has attracted a large number of students as e-gaming “is one of the most developed industries at the national level.”
Fors his part, the technical partner for the Jordanian Game Lab, CEO of "Mays Al Ward" Foundation, Nour Khreis, emphasized the importance of the electronic gaming industry sector and training young people to create games, whose global market revenues, he said, have approximately reached $90 billion in 2023.
Khreis reviewed the stages of the competition, which begins with inviting government and private school students to attend the introductory session of the competition. The present cycle, he said, has seen the participation of 617 students and supervisors from 127 schools, of which 24 schools qualified after receiving the highest marks. The eligible school teams then underwent a training program, and attended an introductory lecture on the game's topic, leading up to the next stage, where 16 schools qualified.
In the third stage, according to Khreis, the students presented their electronic games to a jury comprising specialists in the field that evaluates contenders based on content and information, creativity in design, technical assessment, and user-friendliness. In the final stage, the winners are announced.