Coders HQ launches 10 innovative initiatives to empower more than 15,000 coders

Embracing the UAE is the first Hub of coders and the digital economy

Omar Sultan Al Olama:

Initiatives embody the vision of the country’s leadership to establish advanced programming communities, as well as prepare a new generation that is capable of using technology to build a competitive knowledge-based economy. Doubling the contribution of the digital economy to the UAE economy, reaching 9.7%.

Opportunities and benefits made possible by artificial intelligence will be a key driver for shaping the future and harnessing the fast-growing digital economy.

Initiatives reflect the goals of the Coders HQ programme to provide an incubating and stimulating environment for talented individuals, specialising in programming and artificial intelligence

Subheadings:

Empowering coder communities and building their capability, in addition to providing them with optimal opportunities in the private sector.

Encouraging coder communities to spread knowledge, in pursuit of the country’s aspirations to achieve scientific and technological excellence.

Evaluation Headquarters is tasked with testing and categorizing all programmers across the Emirates while ensuring programmers are provided with optimal opportunities.

Coder HQ Ambassadors are responsible for building and enriching the role of coders, in addition to spreading knowledge and developing talent.

Language Challenge trains university students to find innovative solutions to the difficulties of natural language processing.

Tanzu Community will empower programmers in areas of artificial intelligence.

LinkedIn statistics will provide insight into the current state of programmers across the UAE, resulting in data-led decision making.

Hackathon “OpenHack” aims to develop specialized teams to work within the private sector in the field of DevOps

22, March 2022: His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, confirmed that the UAE government, led by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, will adopt modern technology and artificial intelligence solutions to enhance its future readiness. The opportunities and benefits made possible by technology and artificial intelligence, as well as the challenges it will help solve, will serve as a key driver for shaping the country’s digital future.
The affirmation by His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama follows the launch of 10 innovative initiatives from Coders HQ, an initiative unveiled under the umbrella of the National Programme for Coders, at the Museum of the Future. The initiatives include the establishment of an evaluation headquarters; creation of an ambassador program; roll-out of a language programmer challenge; creation of a Tanzu-focused community; organization of an “OpenHack” hackathon; and the use of LinkedIn statistics; the challenges initiative with Majid Al Futtaim; the collaboration between Emirates and Evaluation Headquarters nominating the coders into career opportunities; Global DevSlam specialized to empower more than 15,000 coders in the UAE. 
The objective of these initiatives is to 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. Together, these initiatives will support the UAE as a preferred global destination for programmers in a thriving digital economy.
Omar Sultan Al Olama said: “Strengthening the programming community in the country is an important goal for Coders HQ. The initiatives put forward will help us understand the current state of the coder community, as well as what is required to build their capability, in order to empower them with required skills for future occupations.”
His Excellency emphasized that the launch of these new initiatives embodies the vision and direction of the country’s leadership to develop advanced programming communities, as well as prepare a new generation that is capable of using technology to build a competitive knowledge-based economy. His Excellency announce that the digital economy doubled the contribution to the UAE economy, reaching 9.7%.
In line with the country’s aspiration to achieve scientific and technological excellence, these initiatives reflect the goals of the Coders HQ programme to provide an incubating and stimulating environment for talented individuals, specialized in programming and artificial intelligence.
The Coders HQ is set out to support and educate a new generation of coders, enhancing their capabilities in areas such as programming and technology. Additionally, the HQ strives to support programming communities by providing an incubating and stimulating environment for those with specialized skills, empowering them with the necessary tools and expertise to innovate. Their innovation will shape the future and support the UAE as a global hub for programmers in a thriving digital economy.
“Update” platform witnessed the establishment of a set of partnerships between the programmer's headquarters and a group of leading agencies and companies which aim to strengthen the programmers community in the UAE and embrace the country’s position as a global hub for programmers, e.g. the partnership with the Dubai World Trade Center to hold the DevSlam Summit, which brings many different software summits to hold together, the partnership with “Emirates” to publish challenges within the challenges headquarters and nominating talents in coding to them from Coders HQ, and partnering with Majid Al Futtaim Group, which contributes to supporting and promoting programming and technology and building a sustainable digital economy.
Helal Al Marri, Director General Dubai Economy & Tourism Department Dubai World Trade Centre Authority stated that Global DevSlam is working in partnership with Coders HQ to support the coders national program through attracting excellent coders internationally, empowering coders and supporting coding communities. Global DevSlam has strategic tools and abilities to embrace the efforts through connecting talented coders with the opportunities in the vibrant UAE hub.
Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer said: “Emirates is proud to be part of the Artificial Intelligence office drive to establish a coders’ community in the UAE, which in turn will support the UAE’s strategy to be a global hub for future technology platform. We’re delighted to partner with the AI’s office and to be a part of this strategic initiative to collaborate in attracting skilled professionals and offer career development for youths. This year, we plan to release other specific Emirates business case initiatives under the Coders HQ initiative. In addition, Emirates plans to hire more than 500 IT professionals to increase the number of our talent coders and take part in supporting future projects. We’ve also tapped on our Aviation X-lab partnership to launch our own internal Emirates Group community to support and nurture anyone passionate about coding, regardless of their experience.”
Evaluation Headquarters
The Evaluation Headquarters is tasked with developing a clear classification for programmers in accordance with their skill level, in addition to providing them with optimal employment opportunities with relevant organizations. Additionally, it is responsible for determining a national baseline to understand the current level of skill among programmers in the country, as well as facilitating the recruitment process with the private sector. To increase efficiency during the recruitment process, programmers who wish to participate in the evaluation initiative can submit their applications through the website www.ai.gov.ae/hqasssment. The initiative is currently in its first phase and utilizes an evaluation criterion of more than 200 relevant skills.
The Headquarters is also concerned with programmers in the UAE who are seeking to test their capabilities, participate in training opportunities or pursuing employment. Interested programmers who would like to be assessed can participate throughout the year. 
Coders HQ will collaborate with the evaluation headquarters to share any assessment results with over 30 of its private sector partners in an automated and private manner. 
Coder HQ Ambassadors 
The Coder HQ Ambassadors initiative is concerned with building the capabilities of ambassadors to allow them to spread programming knowledge and awareness across the country, especially among university students. Additionally, the Ambassadors are responsible for sourcing employment opportunities for interested students, as well increase efforts to drive interest to learn programming, in pursuit of fulfilling demand for coders in the private sector.
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. This opportunity will enable them to serve as an important partner in the process of developing the UAE’s digital economy. Individuals who are interested in joining the Ambassadors programme can apply through the following website: www.ai.gov.ae/chqambsd.
Natural Language Processing Challenge
The "Language Challenge" initiative seeks to develop specialized teams of Emiratis in the field of natural language processing. These teams will be responsible for educating university students on the job market and developing a future talent pool of programmers. Registration will begin on April 1st, 2022, and interviews with select candidates will take place shortly after. During the preparatory stage, applicants are trained in the “Python” language and understand the basics of machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing. During the second phase, real challenges in this field will begin to be solved. Register through the following link: www.ai.gov.ae/lahja.
Reem Asaad, Cisco Vice President, Middle East and Africa affirmed that Ai technology and machine learning are from the major elements to develop an economy based on knowledge and big date. She added: “Cisco is working now to enhance the digital transformation and we are proud to be a partner with Coders HQ in the UAE and to be a part of developing skills and pass knowledge”.
“We are looking forward to work with the Artificial intelligence national program in processing our natural language and use them in different ways as transforming the text into words and podcasts to train the coders on this local comprehensive system through Artificial intelligence national program initiatives.
Tanzu Community
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. The Community will hold monthly meetings with those interested with the objective of nurturing future talent, in support of the objectives of the Coders HQ to create the strongest software community in the region.  Additionally, this initiative will introduce the programming Community to powerful technologies that are able to predict future growth and were previously only available to large companies. Individuals interested in joining the meetings can find more information via the following link: www.ai.gov.ae/chq.
Ahmed Odeh, Vice President of VMWare for the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa asserted that VMWare keenness on supporting the UAE government efforts as well as the efforts of the Artificial intelligence national program in developing a special local environment of programming language and enhancing the digital innovation to reach new levels through the developer platform provided by “Community Edition”.
“Open Hack” Hackathon
The "Open Hack" Hackathon, a joint project between Microsoft and Coders HQ, aims to develop specialized programming teams to work within the private sector in the field of "DevOps". This will result in increased competitiveness which will have a positive impact on the digital economy, in addition to cementing the UAE as a global destination for programmers and knowledge development.
Sayed Hashish, Regional General Manager, Microsoft pointed out that information technology developers are the main route to accelerate their digital transformation. The partnership between Microsoft and Coders HQ initiative aims to empower the local talents in the UAE by highlining the coders' abilities and strengthening them in “DevOps” field. He added: “Open Hack” will focus on coders and connect the developing teams with the industries experts to work on practical experiments to bring innovative solutions for our global challenges. We will continue our collaborations with the UAE governments to provide the coders the right digital tools to build an innovative and sustainable future”.
LinkedIn Statistics
The LinkedIn Statistics initiative is designed to provide accurate statistics that reflect the current state of programmers in the UAE. With more than 63,000 programmers working across all sectors in the UAE, access to this objective data will improve the decision-making process.
Rajai Al-Kadhim, General Manager, LinkedIn, Middle East and North Africa said: “LinkedIn is delighted of the partnership with the Artificial intelligence national program which aims to improve digital skills, provide statistic consulting about the updates in Artificial intelligence technology and share data and expertise in skills and talents in the UAE”.
He pointed out that the data indicate that the skills in the UAE are preferring the advanced digital skills, which achieved the fastest growth rate among different skill sets during the past five years reaching more than 12% annually between 2016 and 2021. FinTech skills, artificial intelligence, data science and robotics are among the most growing skills in this category, which affirm the UAE position in embracing advanced digital talent.”
Challenges initiative with Majid Al Futtaim
Alain Bejjani, Chief Executive Officer at Majid Al Futtaim, said: “These new initiatives from Coders HQ are set to create an environment that will not only incubate local talent but will act as a major platform for expertise around the world, cementing the UAE’s position as a global leader in adopting innovative and emerging technologies. Majid Al Futtaim remains committed to supporting the United Arab Emirates’ knowledge economy ambitions and its creation of a global hub for both data technology and future pioneers."
Transformational project that reshapes programming communitie
The Coders HQ focuses on four main objectives, namely: classifying the levels of programmers in the UAE; developing the capabilities of programmers; ensuring the best opportunities are available for programmers in the UAE; and promoting continuous dialogue between programmers and experts in the country and abroad.
Coders HQ was launched by the UAE government to embody the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. This transformational project set out to redefine and reformulate the concept of programming communities across national and international levels, with the aspiration of creating the best programming community in the region, while increasing efficiency and job opportunities.