Accordingly, for several years now, the
College of Information Technology (CIT)
at the United Arab Emirates University
(UAEU) has raised awareness about the
importance of information technology
in the UAE and has given students and
young talents, including those with spe-
cial needs, the opportunity to compete in
contests and innovation projects in infor-
mation technology by showcasing various
IT products and applications. The CIT or-
ganizes an annual competition under the
name “IT Marathon”.
The ITMarathon aims at spreading aware-
ness about the strategic importance of IT
in the UAE and encouraging and support
-
ing young IT talents to produce the next
generation of IT thinkers. The competition
provides school students, male and fe-
male, throughout the UAE, with the oppor
-
tunity to work in teams to test their IT skills
and show them to their peers, university
students and academicians.
The IT Marathon also aims at inspiring
youngsters to consider pursuing an IT
degree at the UAEU, which is one of the
leading institutions in information technol-
ogy in the UAE and the region.
Since 2008, the CIT at UAEU has been
holding this competition annually. This
year’s seventh competition is scheduled
to kick off on Thursday 8 May 2014.
The IT Marathon contains five tracks: IT
Contest, IT Showcase, IT4Kids, IT4Spe
-
cialNeeds, plus this year’s newly added
track which is IT4Kids “Smart World”.
1) Overview of IT Contest
The objective of the IT Contest is to stimu-
late and challenge young minds to devel-
op their general IT skills in prominent and
most appealing areas, including solving
simple programming problems, creating
illustrative graphics, interactive web ap-
plications, and general computer knowl-
edge.
A set of questions is given to the contes-
tants in the above categories, and they
can choose the order they want to answer
these questions as their preference within
the allocated time. The team that takes the
shortest time to submit the answers is the
winner.
2) IT Showcase, a Forum for Young
Minds
The second track of the IT Marathon is the
IT Showcase, which is a good opportunity
to the students to showcase their distin-
guished projects to their peers from other
schools as well as university students,
academicians and specialists and experts
in the IT industry.
The IT showcase sets the right ground
for students to show their innovations in
the IT field. Accordingly, the top three best
projects are selected to make it to the final
rounds of the competition.
The projects qualified for finals are as
-
sessed by a judging panel made up of the
IT teachers at the university and IT indus-
try experts and academicians. The final
selection shall take place after the contes-
tants showcase their projects before the
public and answer the inquiries and ques-
tions of the judging panel. Based on the
level of demonstration, performance and
opinion of the panel members, the best
participating project in the IT Marathon will
be announced.
3) IT4Kids, Be your own Hero
IT4Kids, one of the competition’s catego
-
ries, helps young people dreaming of de-
signing and developing their own game to
achieve their dream. They can inject their
own imagination, put their own rules, and
have their own heroic characters.
By some self-studying and investigation,
kids can develop their own programs and
games using one of the easiest visual pro-
gramming languages, called Scratch.
The IT4Kids consists of two categories.
Students from Grade 1 to 4 will compete
in one category and students from grade
5 to 9 will compete in a different category.
4) IT4Kids “Smart World”
The 2014 IT Marathon introduced a new
competition which is the IT4Kids “Smart
World” in which kids engage their creative
minds to generate ideas for new and excit-
ing mobile applications.
This competition will challenge their imagi-
native power in bringing their dream ap-
plication closer to the World. Implementa-
tion is not expected, we are only expecting
ideas!
5) IT4SpecialNeeds
The CIT at the UAEU recognizes the right
of people with special needs to express
their ideas, compete and address the
various IT challenges. Accordingly, the
IT4SpecialNeeds gives the opportunity to
exercise this right by school students with
disabilities.
IT4SpecialNeeds offers the opportunities
to show the ability of students with special
needs to contribute to the IT field with new
ideas, software tools, IT equipment, etc.
Awards
The top three teams in each track of the
five tracks of the IT Marathon will win valu
-
able awards, appreciation certificates,
medals and a cup with the team’s ranking.
This year, the IT Showcase will give out
an additional award that was specifically
introduced to reward the best project that
adopts the general theme of this year’s IT
Marathon “Smart World”.
All contestants participating in this scien-
tific national event will receive valuable
gifts.
21
April
2014
