The Palestine Launchpad Programme organised a “Challenge day” for Palestinian tech learners to connect and work together in teams, and create tech solutions under the theme Smart Cities. The learners were divided into teams and three tech specialisations, and each team was connected with their mentors. Tech learners from different parts of Palestine joined the hybrid event, happening online and in-person simultaneously. 

Two weeks prior to the Challenge day, participants received their technical problem statements and guidelines. Under the guidance of assigned mentors, they began developing innovative solutions, preparing to showcase their work to the jury. 

By leveraging technology and applying what they learned throughout the program, they applied their expertise across key areas such as innovation, simulation, automation, data analysis, and collaborative problem-solving, translating concepts into impactful and practical solutions.

This challenge day was the perfect opportunity for tech learners from the Palestine Launchpad with Google programme, to meet, exchange ideas, work in groups, formulate their ideas to design tech solutions to real-life problems and present their hard work to each other before a jury of tech experts in Palestine.

The Palestine Launchpad enhanced learning journey 

Palestinian tech talents apply to the Palestine Launchpad scholarship for multiple reasons. Whether to gain new tech skills or to upskill their existing one, once accepted to the scholarship, learners kick-off their online learning journey with Udacity’s platform, with recorded classes to learn at their own pace. The programme also connects learners with their mentors, who oversee their projects delivery, provide feedback and guide them through their learning journey via live sessions. 

Further down the learning journey, and after learners improve their technical skills, they get the chance to join career workshops and services. With exclusive one-to-one career coaching Palestinian developers and tech talents get the soft skills employers are looking for. From resume building to job interview skills, the trained tech talents are on their way to find the right job for them.

Lastly, the Palestinian tech ecosystem is strengthened by networking to bring together the tech talents and tech experts in one space, to solve problems and create new opportunities. For this reason, this event was curated, and more to come in the future, from job fairs to networking community events and hackathons, all with the purpose to connect tech talents with experts and local, regional and international employers.

During the Palestine Launchpad, learners are accepted to the scholarship programme to retain a Nanodegree through Udacity, under one of the 3 most in-demand tech topics: AI Engineering, Web Development and Data Analysis.

As part of this learning journey, enrolled students experience a mix of self-learning, virtual sessions and on-the-ground engagements, to create an interactive learning journey. 

At SPARK, we believe that an interactive learning environment, and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing has a great benefit in enhancing the learning journey of tech talents. Such an environment is sufficient to allow learners to share their newly acquired skills and apply it to real-world tech solutions.

With that in mind, we had an exciting on-the-ground engagement,  allowing the learners to collaborate, solve a problem, exchange their knowledge and communicate with each other both virtually and in-person  

Tech solutions for real-world urbanisation problems 

Under the theme of Smart City Innovation, 12 groups of Palestinian tech learners presented their solutions to common urbanisation problems. The process began two weeks prior to Challenge Day when participants received their technical problem statements and guidelines. Each team was assigned mentors who provided guidance throughout the development phase. The AI team focused on creating beginner-friendly AI challenges, such as developing models to predict traffic congestion based on temperature and weather conditions, and providing optimization recommendations to manage congestion.

Meanwhile, the Web Development team created a Traffic Dashboard Prototype to visualise key traffic metrics from the dataset, including real-time data visualisation and user interaction features. Additionally, they set up a forum for participants to discuss traffic management strategies. Concurrently, the Data Analysis team tackled data cleaning tasks, ensuring datasets were ready for analysis, and created visualisations like scatter plots, line graphs, histograms, and box plots to illustrate the relationships between temperature, weather conditions, and traffic congestion. This comprehensive approach allowed students to apply their theoretical knowledge to real-world problems, preparing to showcase their innovative solutions to the jury.

Industry Experts to Guide the Journey

To help the students learn more and engage with industry experts, part of the challenge was bringing together a panel of judges who can share their knowledge and expertise. 

The panel of jury consisted of tech experts with diverse backgrounds, who provided the participants with insights and feedback on their progress, and key action points to take home with them. On the panel there was:

Dr. Monda Dmeidi with a background in AI, women advocacy and academic experience. She currently fills the position of Dean of the Faculty of Digital Sciences in the Arab American University in Palestine, and is a leading figure in the technology and entrepreneurial ecosystems in Palestine.

The profound value provided by Nadiah Sabaneh as a jury member with expertise in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship and the founder of FINOMENA (Female Innovators & Investors of MENA.

Ahmad Seder, with over 12 years of experience in software engineering, he is the head of UI/UX engineering at 525 K, where he puts into practice his Dual Masters in Software Engineering & Supply Chain Management, to revolutionise logistics operations with next-gen technology. He provided the learners with innovative inputs on the front-end architecture of the proposed solutions.

Imad Husein is a well-known telecommunication Engineer with local and international experience in the tech and business development ecosystem. He provided technical commentary with profound value to the participants, especially as a product manager.

Key takeaways from the Palestine Launchpad Challenge day

Interactive learning and knowledge sharing, one that extends beyond the academic classrooms, are crucial tools to empower the learning journey for anyone looking to excel in their career, especially in the tech industry. A positive learning atmosphere that fosters connection between learners, their mentors and tech experts, improves the learners experience and outcomes, and helps them to gain skills that have real world applications.

Habib Othman, the team lead of the AI category winner said about this event; ‘the opportunity to present our project to tech experts and industry leaders was both humbling and motivating, driving us to strive for excellence, as Palestinian tech talents’

If you are interested to know more about how the Palestine Launchpad strengthens the Palestinian tech ecosystem, follow us along on the programme’s webpage, where we share stories from our learners, latest news, and cohort announcements. 

The Palestine Launchpad is funded by Google in collaboration with Udacity and SPARK.