Saudi Arabia hosts hackathon to increase security for haj pilgrimage
Saudi Arabia’s custodianship of Mecca and Medina – Islam’s two holiest sites – is seen as the kingdom’s most powerful form of political legitimacy
Fuelled by caffeine, pizza and adrenaline, sleep-deprived programmers in a marathon Saudi contest this week explored hi-tech solutions to prevent a repeat of past calamities in the annual haj pilgrimage.
In a cavernous hall in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, thousands of software professionals and students competed in the kingdom’s first ever hackathon, a coding festival ahead of the world’s largest pilgrimage later this month.
The haj, expected to draw more than 2 million pilgrims to Mecca this year, represents a key rite of passage for Muslims and a massive logistical challenge for Saudi authorities, with colossal crowds cramming into relatively small holy sites.
Launching headlong into 36 hours of software development, the participants from across the globe battled sleep deprivation to crowd source answers to a key question that has long vexed haj organisers – how to avert future deadly disasters.
A group of five Saudi, Yemeni and Eritrean women, all in their 20s and covered head-to-toe in the Islamic niqab, hunched over their laptops to design an app for paramedics to speedily reach people in need of medical attention using geo-tracking technology.