Saudi “Hajj Hackathon” sets world record: Nearly 3,000 software professionals have gathered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this week for a “Hajj Hackathon.”
In the case of the Jeddah event, the specific focus is to generate apps to modernize the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca known as the hajj. According to The National, “The competition will focus on improving Hajj services in food sanitation, finance, transportation, accommodation, communications and crowd management for the estimated two million pilgrims who travel to Saudi Arabia each year…The event is offering cash prizes to the top three participants, amounting to two million Saudi riyals [$533k US] to transform their ideas into application-based solutions.”
The hackathon is supported by some of the giants of the tech industry. It is sponsored by Google, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak delivered addresses during the opening ceremony.
The event is aligned with Vision 2030, an initiative by Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman to modernize the nation’s economy and reduce its dependence on oil exports.
It is the largest gathering of its kind ever, scoring a Guinness World Record for “The most participants in a hackathon.”
The Hajj Hackathon is also notable because of the extensive collaboration of men and women programmers in a country with a reputation for strict segregation of the sexes. Albeit whether it is a harbinger of genuine technological and social reform in the Kingdom, or merely a public relations stunt, remains to be seen.
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The demonstrations started on Tuesday afternoon and spread to multiple cities, including Karaj, Isfahan, and Mashhad.
Video footage from Shiraz shows demonstrators chanting “Death to the Dictator.”
In some cities, security forces have clashed with demonstrators and fired tear gas in their midst.
Demonstrators are protesting deteriorating economic conditions in Iran. The Trump Administration’s withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, and the resulting renewal of sanctions against Iran, scheduled to go into effect August 7, has resulted in a significant drop in the value of Iran’s currency on world markets. This in turn has led to high prices, falling wages, and shortages of water and electricity in the country.
Although Mr. Trump has offered to open negotiations with Iran, the Iranian government has rejected the offer. Hamid Aboutalebi, who describes himself in his Twitter profile as “Sociologist Advisor” to Iran’s President Hasan Rouhani, tweeted on Monday that Iran would not come to the negotiating table unless the US gives in ahead of time on the main point of contention by returning to the JCPOA.
The Express reported that “In a comment provided to Express.co.uk, [Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran] said the source of all the miseries of the Iranian nation is the religious dictatorship, which has wasted the wealth and human resources of our homeland."
I salute the courage of the protesters in standing up to one of the world’s most repressive dictatorships and international bad actors.
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Israel sentences Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour to five months in prison. Ms. Tatour was initially arrested in 2015. The BBC reports that she was charged with “inciting violence and supporting a group banned as a terrorist organization…in connection with three social media posts that appeared at the start of the wave of mainly ‘lone-wolf’ attacks on Israelis. The first was a video featuring her reciting a poem and footage appearing to show Palestinian protesters using slingshots and throwing stones at Israeli security forces. The poem includes the lines: ‘Resist, my people, resist them. / Resist the settler's robbery / And follow the caravan of martyrs.’”
According to Reuters, Ms. Tatour says in her defense that Israeli authorities “didn't understand my poem. There is no call for violence. There is a struggle, they cast it as violent."
As always, I support freedom of speech. So while I disagree with what Ms. Tatour says, I will defend to the death her right to say it. In my humble opinion the Israeli government got this one wrong. Nevertheless, Ms. Tatour isn't fooling anybody with her claim that "There is no call for violence" in her posts.
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Michael Isenberg drinks bourbon and writes novels. His latest book, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092, and tells the story of the conflict between science and shari’ah in medieval Islam. It is available on Amazon.com
Photo credit(s): Twitter, PMOI - NCRI |
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