Ms. Walaa Murtaja, a student of the Physiotherapy Department in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Islamic University of Gaza, won first place on the Arab world scale in the Arab Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence Challenge (Arab IoT & AI Challenge) held at GITEX Global Exhibition in Dubai, UAE, as part of a student team that included Mr. Momen Al-Sammak and Mr. Ali Obeid from Al-Azhar University.
Their first-place project was titled “Smart Air Mattress,” which helps turn over bedridden patients, instead of doing it manually, to prevent bedsores and to save time and effort for caregivers .
The win came amid harsh competition with a large number of projects and startups nominated from eleven Arab countries: Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Tunisia, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Palestine.
The team’s participation in the competition was through AlNayzak Organization for Supportive Education and Scientific Innovation within “Made in Palestine” competition, which qualifies the Palestinian participants from the categories of school students, graduation projects in universities, and startups to compete in Palestine and then in the Arab world. The number of applications for the Palestine IoT & AI Challenge reached 150 technical projects, of which 26 projects of various categories were qualified.
After the finalists participated in the “Made in Palestine” competition, held by AlNayzak Organization on September 14th, only seven winning Palestinian technological projects specialized in the fields of Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence were selected to represent Palestine in the Arab Challenge finals in Dubai.
