RISE Center Partners with U.S. Embassy and KISR to Organize the Second Fishackathon in the Middle East
13th Feb 2018 | by the Department of PR & Marketing
Top Winning Teams Were Led by AUK Students and Alumni
The Center for Research in Informatics, Sciences, and Engineering (RISE) at AUK, the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, and Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) co-organized the 2nd Annual Fishackathon in Kuwait, in collaboration with the Amiri Diwan and HackerNest.
The Fishackathon is a competition that was first launched by the U.S. Department of State in 2014 to inspire the creation of digital solutions to address sustainable fisheries challenges. The event takes place during the same weekend in more than 40 cities around the world in conjunction with Earth Day. The first Fishackathon in Kuwait was hosted by the RISE Center at AUK in April of 2016.
The competition, which took place at the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Center, congregates a variety of expertise ranging from scientists, coders, and environmental enthusiasts to graphic designers coming together to develop useable solutions to worldwide problems of overfishing. The Kuwait event kick-off gave the participants 48 hours to solve one challenge, and present their application and tools aimed at promoting marine conservation practices to a panel of judges. The 65 participants who represented different institutions in Kuwait-but were mostly AUK students-were divided into 9 teams and given 11 international and 2 local challenges to choose from. The challenges covered a broad range of areas including enforcement, marketplace, and sustainability challenges in the problem of worldwide overfishing. The teams were supported by experienced mentors from both industry and academia.
"The Fishackathon is an opportunity for the RISE Center to emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary teamwork, as well as academia-industry collaboration. During the Fishackathon team formation process, we made sure to include people from computer science, engineering, graphic design and business backgrounds...students as well as professionals. Diverse teams can produce innovative and comprehensive solutions that have high chances of turning into tangible products if proper incubation is provided," said Dr. Amir Zeid, Director of RISE Center. "I am proud that most of the Fishackathon participants came from AUK, and I am impressed by the number of ladies reaching 40% representation in this event," he added.
The top three teams were led by AUK students and alumni. The winning team, consisting of Khalid Al-Abdulqader, Hala Al-Faisal, Aya Eltoukhy, Youssef Al-Sahaf, Reham Kablaawi, Usama Al-Adawi, Dr. Mahdi Ghloum, Maher Al-Hinai and Nora Al-Ajmi solved the first local challenge: utilization of cost-effective remote sensing methods to detect coastal erosion and loss of coral reefs. The participants created an application that effectively studies and analyzes the contrast between two images with respect to time, and identifies the location of the image placing it over a real map. AUK President Tim Sullivan expressed his views on the competition, saying, "Participants in Fishackathon were challenged to solve a real problem, not an imaginary one. They did this under the kind of stress they would find in the real world, but in the context of a game. Thus, they were able to have fun while working to make the world a better place! And all of the participants emerged from this experience better off than when they started. In short, everybody won!" The winning team will advance to compete with winners from all around the world at the international competition. A global judging panel composed of business, technical, and fisheries experts will review the submitted solutions from each country and select the grand prize winners, to be announced on World Oceans Day.
The AUK Center for Research in Informatics, Sciences, and Engineering (RISE) serves as AUK's primary source for multidisciplinary research and development (R&D) activities. The Center employs a holistic approach to R&D by integrating academic disciplines, and forging connections between local & international innovators, academia & industry, and technology & society.
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