UAE Ministry of Community to launch Blockchain Competition

The UAE Ministry of Community Development launched the ‘Social Blockathon’ Competition that aims for developing software through Blockchain technology accomplished within a specified time, in order to design beneficial programs for educational, social and recreational purposes.

The competition comes as part of providing solutions and applications for families, people of determination, senior emiratis, Public Non-Benefit Associations in the areas of awareness and social care. This was announced during the ministry’s participation in GITEX Technology Week 2019 held at Dubai World Trade Center between 6-10 October.

The "Blockathon" is a new technology that gathers both programming specialists, graphic and interface designers, to develop the Blockchain software. They participate collaboratively and in a timely manner to deliver programs for educational, social or recreational purposes. Each team will work on the idea of a system that serves the community and the team applies it creatively, by developing applications on the Blockathon application to serve the beneficiaries of all categories.

On this occasion, Saeed Abdulla, Information Technology Advisor at the Ministry of Community Development, said: "The Blockathon Social Competition" is opened for all the community members to create more community development ideas in smart applications to enhance the ministry’s objectives in providing proactive community services, support sustainable community development visions, and achieve the strategic goals of the Ministry of Community Development emerging from the UAE 2021 vision and 2071 centennial goals".

He emphasised that the deadline of receiving the applications for the competition is 1st February 2020. All participating applications will be evaluated, winners will be announced and prizes distributed during the UAE Innovation Month on February 2020. Prizes are divided as follows: AED30,000 for the first place, AED20,000 for the second, and AED10,000 for the third place.

The "Social Blockathon" competition themes are based on key topics including: blockchain solutions for various use cases, applications for people of determination, applications of senior citizens, social awareness applications, social care applications, family applications. The idea must be completed and implemented on time, using pre-designed software and applications are not allowed, the implemented application should be either a site or a smart application that coincides with Blockchain. The intellectual rights of the participating applications are for the party that proposed it, while the intellectual property rights of the participating and winning applications are owned by the Ministry of Community Development.

The judging criteria for the "Social Blockathon" competition are based on themes: accuracy, security, innovation and application, easy usage, scalability and connectivity with other applications and systems, as well as the quality of the final report and presentation. It is noted that "Blockathon" is a two section short cut word "Blockchain and Marathon", where Blockchain means applications that work through this innovative technology "Blockchain", while marathon refers to the endurance race. Therefore, the term "Blockathon" has become world widely recognized of software races for "Blockchain" applications.