Every year, the NASA Global Space Applications Challenge, the world's largest hackathon, is held, which aims to engage people in creating projects that include solutions to the challenges we face on Earth and in space. This event provides an opportunity for people all over the world to apply to receive local leadership for their cities by submitting an application on the competition website. This competition is based on a unified topic chosen by the competition committees, and the projects submitted for the competition are built on this specific topic.
Since the launch of this challenge in 2012, the participation rate of the MENA region has been very limited. Therefore, the "Arab Cities Initiative" was launched, which aims to spread awareness about the Hackathon, establish alliances between different MENA cities and exchange experiences among the participants. The vision of this initiative is to engage the youth in their societies by providing them with sufficient assets and resources, engaging them in such global events and recognizing their abilities to make a positive contribution, in addition to providing them with an enabling environment that recognizes their rights and their ability to participate in building and developing their societies.
A knowledge-sharing session for the initiative was held within the YouthLead Arabic Community, and was attended by many interested youth members from Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Morocco and Palestine. Check the recording below:
Attendees were introduced by Mustafa Gouda, the local lead of this year's NASA space apps challenge for Giza city in Egypt, to the principles of the competition, some projects from the previous NASA hackathons throughout the years, the registration process for the local leads and the selection process of the team and distributing tasks to members.
Now, we introduce you to local leads for the NASA Space Apps Challenge who are also affiliated with the Arab Cities Initiative:
Mostafa Gouda, Giza - Egypt
Mostafa is a professional in the urban and environmental sustainability field. He obtained his master's degree in Resource Efficient Cities. He has led several volunteer and community service activities with non-profit organizations related to environmental, urban, and technological aspects. He is a former fellow of the UNSDSN-Youth local pathways program for sustainable cities and communities. Mostafa is a local Lead of the NASA space apps challenge hackathon in Giza city as well as a co-founder of Arab Cities Initiative 4 NASA Space Apps. He is certified as a Smart Cities practitioner by the Smart Cities Council.
Alaa Alsayed, Irbid - Jordan
Alaa is a professional in the Geography field and is the local leader of this year for the NASA Space Apps Challenge Hackathon from Irbid, Jordan. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in geography with an excellent grade, and a master’s degree in Applied Geography with an excellent grade. He is also a member and head of the YouthMappers branch at Yarmouk University. He is considered a link between the university, its resources and YouthMappers members, and the future hackathon activities of the Irbid city team.
We will be introducing more members of both teams soon! Now we are looking forward to more youth applying to the local lead application for their cities via this link, as applications are open again and will close in mid-July, so that everyone can prepare enough for the competition on 2-3/October.