E-Commerce Hackathon program at the Saudi Electronic University

The E-commerce Hackathon program at SEU has wrapped up virtually under the sponsorship of the President of the Saudi Electronic University, Dr. Lilac Ahmad Al-Safadi. The ceremony was held with the participation of the nominated project from 9 universities Kingdom-wide, in the presence of the leaders of those universities to support the participating students. The hackathon aims to motivate students in Saudi universities to develop innovative products in the field of e-commerce that help provide a smooth shopping experience for consumers and broad access anytime and anywhere.

This program comes under the supervision of the Innovation Center in E-Learning, in a strategic partnership with the global company in electronic payment, Hyper Pay, in addition to the chair of Bank Albilad for e-commerce.

The ceremony started with a speech by the President of the University. She spoke about the importance of innovation and the role of universities in stimulating innovation in new qualitative fields such as e-commerce, which is a significant driver driving the economies of developed countries.

During the ceremony, the projects nominated to win prizes totaling 20.000 riyals, presented by the university and its strategic partners, were reviewed. The final evaluation was conducted electronically during the ceremony according to specific criteria.

The participating projects were represented in Lamma application: which is an application that provides traditional services and products for friends and family gatherings. Abaya platform: is a platform that provides services for designing the Saudi abaya by linking several parties in this industry. "Live Your Journey" application acts as a link that guides tourists or investors to tourist areas throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with pictures and descriptions in 360 degrees. Torod platform : which enables the owners of e-commerce sites to access several services in shipping. Assaala platform: which brings together several crafts and popular arts in the Kingdom to sell products that embody the authenticity and culture of the Kingdom. And the Binary platform: which provides services for buying and selling digital products from its developers.

In first place, Lamma App won 10,000 SAR, which was developed by female students (Rahaf Nayif Al-Sahli, Joud Sultan bin Darwish, Noura Ahmad Al-Salama, Rand Fahd Al-Amer, Basma Ahmad Al-Hamrani) from the Saudi Electronic University and King Saud University. while second place was for “Torod platform” and they won 7,000 SAR, which was developed by (Faisal Muhammad Al Mukhlis, Ammar Muhammad Al Matouk, Fayez Siraj Al Mukhlis, Hammoud Faisal Al Subaie) from King Saud and King Abdulaziz Universities. And third place was for “Live Your Journey Application” and they won 3.000 SAR, which was developed by female students (Amal Muhammad Al-Shahrani, Anwar Dahim Al Aweer, Lama Aoun Al-Suloli, Hana Shami Al-Sahari) from the University of Bisha.

400 male and female students from 38 universities and colleges around the Kingdom participated in the activities of the e-commerce hackathon. The hackathon stages also included virtual awareness workshops that brought together the participants with a group of specialists in e-commerce, computer software, user experience design and business.

The hackathon was held online via virtual platforms that enabled the participants to form teams and distribute tasks. The teams began to develop their ideas, design and write code for them, where the progress of the teams' projects was followed up by specialists and experts in the fields of programming, entrepreneurship and e-commerce.

E-commerce is a significant driver driving retail trade around the world, as by 2023 it is expected that 22% of global purchases will be via e-commerce, as the sector has grown locally since the launch of Vision 2030, with 60% of Saudis buying online. And the biggest factor of this growth is the sector's continuous innovation of technologies that enhance e-commerce operations.