Ooredoo announces theme winners of QDB Hackathon 2023

Ooredoo has announced the winners of the Ooredoo theme at the annual Qatar Development Bank (QDB) “Business Incubation and Acceleration” (BIA) hackathon.
This year’s Ooredoo theme at the BIA Hackathon 2023, *Enabling Customer Experience, focused on exploring how the telecoms and digital services industries can capture, respond to, and enhance the customer experience.
Ooredoo’s theme drew applications from 41 startups and innovators with 11 being accepted and 10 pitching their ideas.
Ideas involved technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).
Three ideas were declared winners: Ablelyf, a pioneering solution that tailors AI modules to cater to the unique needs of individuals with sensory conditions; Alwafee Academy for the Deaf, a comprehensive mobile app tailored for the deaf and hard of hearing that provides a platform for educational courses and resources; and Speechzy, an AI-assisted mobile app that acts as a communication coach by offering quick feedback on grammar, pronunciation, voice and body language using recorded or uploaded audio and video files.
Winners walked away with a QR25,000 pre-investment award and direct access to the Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC) incubation programme.
Ooredoo Qatar chief business officer Thani al-Malki said: “We’re always excited to see the level of talent and creativity at the QBIC hackathons and the 2023 iteration was no different.”
“We’ve long had a strategic commitment to investment in innovation as a key element of our drive towards complete digitalization, and events such as these only serve to further our progress,” he said. “We look forward to seeing how the latest winners develop their ideas and to the positive impact they will no doubt have on our economy, our country, and its digitalisation journey.”
The Ooredoo theme winners were presented with their cheques at an awards ceremony hosted recently at the QBIC.
Digital Enablement assistant director Clay Susini represented Ooredoo at the event and congratulated each winner on their current achievements.