The Al-Sawi Cultural Wheel in Cairo was buzzing with 60 young computer science inventors showcasing their latest ideas and celebrating their successes in the Go Online Week (GOW) from 21-27 March. The project was held under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cairo. The five winning teams will participate in a training programme presented by Microsoft on business development, while the first winning team also won mobile phones. Sherif Al-Tokali, assistant resident representative for UNDP in Cairo, said that the students had competed during the two days of the GOW. They were divided into groups and were introduced to different developmental problems, the environment, women's empowerment and innovation. Then the teams came up with their ideas and developed mobile applications. The winners were War Kids, Zebala (garbage), Bee wa Ishteri (sell & buy), Waffarly (save for me), and Ded Al-Taharrosh (against sexual harassment). “Waffarly, the first prize-winning application, helps save on electricity, gas and water bills,” explained Hassan Medhat, a team member. The application calculates bills and informs users if they have exceeded their normal consumption. “When they know the bill will be expensive, they spontaneously start saving,” Medhat said. Mohamed Hassan, a member of the team that created the War Kids application, said it provided uneducated mothers with the means to help their children from the date they were born until primary stage. It is divided into three features. The first is basic sight examination, which helps a mother know if her child is facing any problems with his eyes. The application identifies the mother's location and provides her with the nearest doctor's address and phone number. It also measures the child's IQ to find out about his talents. “It starts from the alphabetical level until the complicated mathematical level,” Hassan said. “There is also a game at the end of each test to motivate children.” The third feature of the application alerts mothers on vaccination times and locates nearest vaccination places. Because the mothers using it are often uneducated, the application is based on animation. The Zebala (garbage) application was awarded third prize. It is divided into three sections, one to locate the nearest garbage bin, another to mark it on a map, and a third to promote recycling, explained Mohamed Farrag, a member of the team that created the application. Ded Al-Taharrosh and Bee wa Ishteri ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. Ahmed Shaaban, a member of the team that developed the Bee wa Ishteri application, said that it targeted people who could not market their handmade products, especially women, economically disadvantaged families, and those living in rural areas. “Any person creating a product at home can photograph it and add it to the application with its price and the user's phone number to help sell it,” he said, adding that the application was available to anyone despite its main target. The Ded Al-Taharrosh application provides tips and support for harassed women, explained Mennatallah Gamal, one of the team members who created the application. It provides women with tips on how to defend themselves against harassment and how to create self-defence tools. It also encourages them to speak out about harassment and to know their rights. Through the application, women can find the nearest police station to report a harasser. The application is also linked to the sites of campaigns fighting sexual harassment, which the user can call up by clicking on its name. Gamal said that there were plans to add a feature through which the application would directly report the women's location to the police and to one of the nearest campaigns. Another feature would help women to share their experience and encourage each other to speak about it. Al-Tokali said that the GOW was now an annual event in Europe, where technological clubs work together to present information technology to the wider public, helping people use it as part of their daily lives and to promote development. This year was the first time the event had been held in Egypt and the Middle East. It was sponsored by the UNDP in cooperation with the Ministry of Communication and information technology (MCIT), the Egypt Information and Communication Technology Trust Fund (ICT-TF) and the Microsoft Egyptian Partnership with the Europe Telecentre Network and the International Telecentre Institute. The writer is a freelance journalist.
