One Million Arab Coders (OMAC), an initiative by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), organized 32 interactive sessions led by expert programmers and other specialists as part of its Coders Talk series that aims to introduce technology enthusiasts to the latest global IT trends.
Broadcast through OMAC’s official Facebook page, the event attracted over 200,000 views from around the world to highlight the latest trends in various fields of technology and programming from the UAE, region, and the world.
The sessions covered a wide variety of topics, such as artificial intelligence, computer science, software engineering, e-commerce, data analysis, programming languages, electronic security, machine learning, cloud computing, electronic applications, the Internet of Things and communications.
Abdulaziz Al Jaziri, Deputy CEO of Dubai Future Foundation said: “OMAC launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, continues to equip emerging talent with new skills that will support them in leveraging state-of-the-art technologies to develop innovative solutions of the future.”
Among the international experts headlining the sessions were Sebastian Thrun, Chairman and Co-Founder of Udacity, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and Member of Dubai Future Academy’s Board of Trustees, Omar Abdelkader, Full-stack Software Developer at MitchDesigns, Al Sayed Gamal, CTO, Lead Architect and Senior Software Engineer at Cognitev, Mohamed Abo-Shosha, Engineer at STC, Mohamed Osama, Software Engineer at Trella, Hadi Partovi, Founder and CEO of Code.org, Tamer Deif, Head of Operations at Brizi, Mohamed Reda Eldehiry, Senior Software Engineer at Zillow, Haytham Bassiouny, Product Manager at Vezeeta.com, Mahmoud Sabae, Co-Founder and CTO of Garment IO, Ahmed Ashraf, Marketing Specialist – EMEA at Skyscanner, Khaled Sadek, Software Technical Lead at ThePlanet, and Rory Preddy, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft.
UAE-based speakers included Ayça Baş, Cloud Developer Advocate at Microsoft, Maha Ashour, Assistant Vice President at Mashreq Bank, Ramy Mahrous, Data Analyst Expert at Careem, and Mina Youssef, Software Engineer at MFR, in addition to several OMAC graduates.
Launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, OMAC seeks to train one million young Arabs in computer programming to provide them with the technological tools and expertise to address the challenges of the future.