A total of 150 male and female students, employees and faculty members from Umm Al-Qura University participated in the Health Leadership Hackathon organized by the Entrepreneurship Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Makkah, in cooperation with the Health Department in the Makkah Region, Umm Al Qura University, and the Friends Association charitable society.

During the past two days, the Hackathon event witnessed health awareness-raising campaigns, achieving the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030 through the introduction of new ideas. Dr. Khalid Abu Al-Shamat, the General Supervisor of the Hackathon and a teaching staff member at Umm Al-Qura University, viewed that the newly introduced ideas form a pivotal basis for the campaign design. He added that these ideas are to come into effect twenty-eight days after the completion of the Hackathon.

Dr. Abu Al-Shamat indicated that registration in the Hackathon remained open to all specialists, from all over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Hackathon included three different majors from Umm Al-Qura University and from other institutions. The majors are the medical specialty, with all its branches of nursing, dentistry and human medicine, health sciences, and public health; entrepreneurship, with its commercial, investment and marketing divisions; and innovation, with its divisions of directing, photography, gaming, animation and other creative specialties.

He stated, “Health campaigns are present in the markets in a remarkable and intensive way. However, their mission and impact end as soon as the campaign period ends. For this reason, the Hackathon has changed the concept of campaigns and has developed them, in order for them to be more attractive to the target audience than they used to be, taking advantage of various media and up-to-date content that has a beneficial impact on the recipient."

On his part, a faculty member in the College of Dentistry at Umm Al-Qura University, Dr. Jamil Abul-Jadayil, reported that students were divided into groups for brainstorming sessions in the workshops in order to come up with new innovative ideas for medical campaigns targeting community members.