Superstar Session: The App Challenge Ceremony

we are getting ready for the superstar session which is our app challenge ceremony this is exciting for me uh for one because you know being the uh indie evangelist and hosting the big indie pictures anything that shows creativity from the indie scene and from students and from any kind of studio is what i live and breathe so i would uh love at this point to introduce a nor up to the stage a very very very close friend of pocket gamer connects and someone that we have just about every single show but i know that this show is uh extra extra special to him and he's going to um he's going to introduce everything but just before we do that while we're getting all prepared and ready we've got a video to show you all

about the app challenge so while nor prepares himself uh a friend of the show we're going to show you a little bit about the app challenge so here's the video check it out and then noor will be with me [Music] foreign

a [Music] [Music] so yes oh there we go that was an introduction to the app challenge ceremony and uh we've got noah here now how are you now it's good to see you hello sofia thank you thank you very much yes indeed

uh i'm a close not yes available are yeah which is uh you know it's new for all of us all across the world isn't it but it's just amazing that we can still do this uh yes indeed it's a it's a fortunate and unfortunate uh kind of uh pressure on us all yeah that we managed to get this online uh and very excited for you know the app challenge announcement today this is one of the event that is very close to my heart i believe those young girls and boys they are full of passion um and this is what we have been doing with them for the past uh ten years uh the initiative started in 2011 and it started uh uh just to put them

into the right track for the future uh the king abdullah fun for development uh uh just fulfilling a a vision for his majesty king of jordan to empower those kids to empower them with something that we all thought at that time it would be a solid future and this is what we are living today uh the mobile apps and the games are showing its very solid future and the sustainable kind of goal for those young jordanians who basically might be doctors or engineers or whatever education they want but they will be needing this mobile app gamification and the solid technology behind it um so this this year has been you know challenging for us all so uh we will we will see today uh as we saw in the video we had like an orientation day with like more than 300 students who basically participated

between the age 14 to 16 and and we were happy to to see almost 82 teams applied and then we had 23 who basically went through the five five days kind of training with us and basically really those are kids with zero knowledge on game development they started from scratch uh and that was the big challenges is how to put them remotely because usually we have this physical kind of interaction between between us and the student this time we had to build everything uh on the cloud and uh and it was a bit challenging especially in a country like jordan where yes we we can't consider ourselves as one of the major leaders of technology in the region but we have limited resources when it comes to an individual not everyone

with a laptop not every one best internet connection etc but we accepted the challenge and uh i really you know uh i have to say this is because of a strong belief from the king abdullah fund for development who basically encouraged us also to carry on this year and and build the program as as it is as we are doing it every year um so today we will see a couple of projects uh winners from three different uh uh areas from jordan um we will announce them i i will be switching to arabic uh chapter after world because our audience our students who are waiting for us actually now uh to announce this will be uh you know looking forward to hear more about uh this year competition uh but again uh i will i will always i you know we are on an international platform today pocketgamers and

this is why we basically collaborated since last year with pocketgamer to put you know more of jordan on on this international kind of uh stage i encourage everyone whether in in developed or developing country to focus on those grassroots future young developers who basically can lead uh something great in in the near future covered and and the pandemic that we lived the stress uh changed a bit of our you know uh our plans uh for for sometimes for you know financially negative but sometimes made us focus on more important aspect which is the human aspect which is the most important aspect that we always here in jordan invested a lot uh as individual as as a government as as a kingdom in this asset which is the human asset and this year with what we are living today

confirm this important investment that we want to put and nothing best to put it in a grassroot future uh young jordanian or so that's my message today um again thank you and uh i will i will switch now to uh uh to my native language of course yeah but just before you do that though i just want to say that um obviously after you've done uh you know introducing the app challenge giving us a bit of background i will uh pop back onto the stage just to help uh bring everyone on stage because i know we've got an awful lot of students who are going to be joining us so i will come back in order to help that process uh but for now i will leave you to it but i'm excited to see all the games i know from doing the big indie pitch in previous years uh there is some amazing talent and a lot of it comes from the the youth in jordan which is just amazing to see and obviously that just gives you insight on how that development is going to grow

and grow and grow so yeah i'll leave it to you and then i look forward to seeing more in a bit thank you thank you [Music] [Music] [Music]

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the friends in the green room if we want to let the students enter they can enter because we'll be announcing soon fantastic yes so very quickly all i do want to say is i know we can see a number of people with the hands up in the attendees uh please do uh lower your hand if you are not coming up to the stage if you are coming up to the stage leave that hand raised and catherine will surely but slowly but surely start adding you in the capsules

thank you sophia no thank you um but yeah we can see everyone starting to join so uh i will just wait here a moment while we get everyone added in but uh yeah this is very exciting yes it is it is and uh let's see uh you know let's see uh how happy the winners will be yes yes i remember in previous years that uh when we've done the big indie pitching jordan it's a it's it's just such a nice moment when you announce the winners and you get to see that that happiness so where hopefully we've got some excited winners and some great um you know great creations to showcase definitely thank you thank you yes hopefully anyways i can see everyone slowly coming in now so only only 27 left to join

we'll be waiting might set a record for the most people on screen at one of our digital uh tracks yeah that's that's a catherine uh catherine challenge today record today entering uh 30 people into one one one screen yeah oh here we go we're down to five left now so uh we're nearly there once they're there i will disappear into the background again and uh let you announce the winners and i will uh be watching excitedly so we we we i will i will continue with the the qualified team the names of creativity [Music]

genius developers infer the beauty of the app challenge sofia is if you can't see from the screen and that's always i we talk and we are proud about it in jordan we have a lot of female developers yes we we basically one of the countries that have a within our gaming companies and within our community we we have around the campus of our female so that's that's a something that we are very proud um and we can see it now and uh

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and now we will start announcing three winners and i'm not allowed we can start announcing the first winner catherine you can start with the first winner oh right yes so yes oh here we go so uh we've got the video plane i think we just need to pop it onto the spotlight there we go

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thank you very much uh everyone uh uh catherine i think we uh we are we are good now and uh i think today is is you know the i can see the the winners are happy uh and we are glad that we managed to get this on with uh with the students and congratulations everyone bravo alaikum who again and we we announced the winners and uh we basically um uh thanking you for supporting us this time of managing and getting things uh to the standard that you always uh you know

always promise and deliver uh and we are happy uh to see you know to see the students who basically managed to to get into i was telling them that everyone is a woman yes definitely there is always yes and there is you know everyone made and it was a challenge building for covet is nothing you know if you tell me an ugly thing itself so building a game is like you know it's very hard yes and and they took this challenge and we are basically happy that they managed to get and we will be working with them to polish the games as usual and we will be publishing them on the stores so uh other students and and the world can see what a 14 to 16 years old kid boys or girl can build for awareness and to contribute towards you know the awareness

for for the pandemic that we are living today fantastic thank you very much glad that we managed this correctly and uh again that's a for next year hopefully physically will not be remotely doing zooming yes definitely but no it's just so fantastic that you know you've been able to do this and you know it's just brilliant to see all the amazing talent on display and you know like you say everyone has a student so the only way is up and if this is the starting level of talent then that's really exciting exactly exactly you know we we are happy and uh again that's um uh that's the future and uh yeah thank you for helping us presenting part of jordan the young part of jordan the future of jordan and the future that that that would contribute more to the world thank you shukran welcome and uh have a nice day everyone enjoyed yes thank you yeah congratulations everyone uh hopefully

you'll be joining us for a range of our workshops later on that uh are obviously here thanks to uh the jordan gaming lab and the king abdullah the second fund for development we couldn't do that without uh your support so thank you no thank you to everyone bye bye bye thank you noor like i say to everyone a you know a very uh close friend of pocket game connects we've worked together with years it is an honor and a pleasure to have noor with us again and to help you know showcase all the amazing student talents that you saw just there as part of the app challenge ceremony uh even more exciting which was news to me is that every single one of the games is going to be you know made available through the gaming lab so that you can try them and test them yourself which is very exciting

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