RIYADH, 7 October 2003 — Excitement was in the air at the King Fahd Cultural Center on Sunday as the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) announced the winners of the organization’s competition for Excellence in Software Development Creativity. The competition kicked off in March 2003, initiated by RCCI’s IT and Communication Committee with the objective of motivating talented Saudis and residents in the Kingdom to present their software programming skills and software based projects. RCCI hopes to assist in commercializing the best software development projects with the goal of building a software development industry in Saudi Arabia.
According to Taher Al-Dabbagh, vice president, Software Development Committee, RCCI and head of the competition’s organizing committee, there were 92 participants in the competition, including ten women. Boeing sponsored the competition through a donation of $100,000.
“We are pleased with the result of the First Software Development Competition,” said Al-Dabbagh. “Indeed, Saudi Arabia has many talented people who deserve a chance to be noticed. This is our aim. This competition is just one key step toward building a thriving software development industry in Saudi Arabia. We are delighted to be announcing the winners at the same time as RCCI’s annual meeting and soon we hope to hold a separate awards ceremony along with an exhibition of key projects submitted.”
First prize of SR50, 000 was won by Hasan Mohammed Raja for his program on Network Process and Control. Second prize of SR40, 000 went to Ahmad Abdullah Al-Rashoody for his program on Real Estate Electronic Service. Third prize of SR30, 000 was awarded to Akram Fadal Noor and Najla Fadal Noor for their program on Telecommunication Information Security. Fourth prize of SR20, 000 was taken by Akram Ali Mohammed for his Internet with an Arabic Outlook. Fifth prize of SR10, 000 was earned by Khalid Shabab for his work on Manufacturing Remote Control Software.
“This is to be an annual competition,” said Al-Dabbagh, “and we hope to make it even more competitive in coming years. One issue this year was that the quality of the entries was uneven. For next year we will give better guidelines on submissions, including the kind of work most desired by local businesses.”
Al-Dabbah believes that helping young software developers through all the steps required for commercialization of a software product is the only way to encourage local development. Unfortunately, while young developers are tech savvy, they often lack the skills to bring a product to market successfully.
“I met a developer on a flight, and he told me about a health information system that he spent 6 months creating,” Al-Dabbagh said. “Eventually, after much effort he sold the system to an outpatient clinic. He went to another clinic soon after and was shocked to find that they already had a copy of the program. Since he had not registered and protected his work, he was helpless to prevent its theft.”
Software development is big business globally and the field has been especially attractive to those nations with a large supply of young, creative manpower. Jordan and India are two countries that have done very well in this field. Al-Dabbah admitted that the software development industry is still at an early stage in Saudi Arabia, however he felt that this should not hold back progress.
“We have local developers and most of the essential infrastructure for their support is already available. What really is needed now is focus and organization of all required elements for commercialization of the products that our local talent creates,” explained Al-Dabbah.
“Saudi businessmen are always looking for good, profitable areas of investment. RCCI is working to enable them to have confidence to invest in local software development.”
