Dubai: The ‘UAE Coders HQ’, an initiative to consolidate the UAE’s leading position as a global hub for coders and digital economy, on Tuesday launched 10 initiatives to support the coding community in the country.
These initiatives will pave the way for a comprehensive ecosystem for empowering at least 15,000 coders in the next six months, embedding coding ambassadors across the country and enabling coders with employment opportunities, according to Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications.
Unveiling the initiatives under the umbrella of the National Programme for Coders, through the ‘Update’ platform of the Coders HQ at the Museum of the Future, Al Olama said the initiatives will increase the number of programmers in the country and aspire to achieve the highest number of programmers per capita globally.
Additionally, the goal of these coder-centric innovations is to build the reputation of the country’s programming communities as the best in the region, while ensuring they are provided with optimal job opportunities.
63,000 programmers
One of the initiatives –the LinkedIn Statistics initiative—is designed to provide accurate statistics that reflect the current state of programmers in the UAE and help improve the decision-making process.
Rajai Al-Kadhim, general manager, LinkedIn, Middle East and North Africa, said LinkedIn has identified more 63,000 programmers working across all sectors in the UAE.
Another initiative is the establishment of an Evaluation Headquarters for Coders to help people with coding skills and programmers to assess their skill levels and potentials, and provide them with optimal employment opportunities with relevant organisations.
Coding ambassadors
Another initiative is the creation of an ambassador programme to embed coders who meet the eligibility criteria to work with different entities to spread programming knowledge and awareness across the country, especially among university students, and source employment opportunities for them. The Ambassadors will be able to use the allocated space at Coders HQ, located at Emirates Towers, to propose and implement projects that serve public interest.
NLP in Emirati dialect
The roll-out of a language programmer challenge was also announced to develop specialised teams of Emiratis in the field of natural language processing (NLP). Cisco will develop NLP that enables Emiratis to learn and understand all tech-related information in their own dialect, said Reem Asaad, vice president, Middle East and Africa at Cisco.
The Tanzu Community initiative, launched in collaboration with VMWare, a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, provides programmers with an opportunity to learn about multiple software technologies, said Ahmed Odeh, Vice President of VMWare for the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.
Open Hackathon
The “Open Hack” Hackathon, a joint project between Microsoft and Coders HQ, aims to develop specialised programming teams to work within the private sector in the field of “DevOps”. Sayed Hashish, regional general manager, Microsoft, said the partnership will also provide learning forums for local talent.
In partnership with the Dubai World Trade Center, Global DevSlam Summit will be held to empower more than 15,000 coders in the UAE. The partnership will bring many different software summits, according to Helal Al Marri, director general Dubai Economy and Tourism Department Dubai World Trade Centre Authority.
The coders’ challenges initiative with Majid Al Futtaim will create an environment that will not only incubate local talent but will act as a major platform for expertise around the world, according to Alain Bejjani, CEO at Majid Al Futtaim.