The Arab Mobile App Challenge was held for the first time ever during January 2014. It gave the opportunity to everyone from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Jordan, UAE or Qatar to take part and show of their skills in designing and developing new innovative mobile apps.

More than 150 teams from participating countries took part in the challenge and developed interesting and amazing apps focused on the assigned segments.

Apps needed to be focused on education, entertainment, health or entrepreneurship,  and the top ranked teams will have the opportunity to participate in the Mobile World Congress Finals in Barcelona at the end of February.  Apart from this, the chanllenge also awarded three first place app winners valuable cash prizes.

Three main winners were Loujee, the first ever Arab iOS app powering an educational toy for children ($50,000); Crowd Analyzer, from the UAE, automated Arabic social media platform covering Middle East and North Africa ($30,000); Markabaty from Jordan, helping car owners find workshops and troubleshoot problems ($20,000).

The teams who will go on to the World Mobile Congress are:  ICAPS (UAE), Baharat (Saudi Arabia), EduTechnoz (Qatar), The Pen (Jordan), and Grant Fit (Tunisia).

The Arab Mobile App Challenge was organized by Silatech and Ooredoo from Qatar, as well as the Applied Innovation Institute from the US.