President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has honored the winners of the African App Launchpad (AAL) Cup, during the closing ceremony of 2019 World Youth Forum, in Sharm El Sheikh. The competition was organized by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) within the framework of AAL presidential initiative.
In the Game Development category, Ahmed Hisham Radwan was honored for winning the first place, representing Agora Egyptian startup. The startup developed an educational app that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify the objects surrounding students in real life and transforms them into educational tools using Augmented Reality (AR), creating real-life interactive experiences.
In the App Development category, el-Sisi honored Ali Abou El Nasr who won the second place for Find Me Football app. The app helps amateur football players communicate to play football, through providing a number of services including matching players, creating shared lists, organizing and hosting championships.
Also winning the second place was Stephen Osawaru and Anthony Osawere, representing 247Medic Nigerian company. 247Medic provides online medical consultations and services through establishing communication between patients in rural areas and their doctors, providing medical tests services and delivering medications in remote areas.
MCIT, represented by the Information Technology Industry Development agency (ITIDA) launched this first of its kind competition in Africa, providing African early-stage entrepreneurs and startups a platform to present their innovative ideas and submit their business projects. This is in addition to providing cash prizes and training grants with total $60K.
A number of 192 teams and startups from 12 African countries applied for the competition, 30 of which, from nine countries, reached the finals.
The competition is part of MCIT efforts to implement el-Sisi’s directive and AAL presidential initiative, in line with last year’s World Youth Forum’s recommendations. The aim is to build capacity of 10K young Egyptians and Africans and qualify them to develop digital games and apps using the latest technologies. This is in addition to stimulating the establishment of 100 Egyptian and African startups specializing in these fields, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of international companies, ministries and institutions in different African countries.
In 2019, more than 6304 young people from 19 African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Algeria, Congo, Uganda, Cameroon and Angola, applied to join the initiative. The initiative provided 4638 training courses in 24 modern technology tracks.
