Initiated by His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, and managed by the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD), The App Challenge (TAC) is a school student centered competition that invites young Jordanians to explore and engage in new emerging technologies.

It aims to challenge students’ creative problem-solving skills by enabling them to build an App that is compatible with new devices, for its first cycles the students compete to build an iOS App compatible with iPhones and iPads.

The first cycle of the challenge focused on “Tourism” offering the tourists an informative, handy, current and interactive guide to Jordan. The four icons you see represent applications (Apps) entirely developed by high school students who qualified for the competition.  These students (ages 15-17) only received 5 days of training on basics of App development and design, and then given only 1 month to deliver a tested functional App.

These Apps were assessed by a panel of experts against creativity and use of multimedia, technical evaluation, informational content, as well as user friendliness and practicality.

In the final ceremony that was held in May 2011, His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein awarded the winning team from Amman National School for their App “Jordan In-n-Out”.

The KAFD is now managing the second cycle of the App Challenge 2011 which is focusing on “Jordanian Products” and will demonstrate Jordan’s diversity whether in food, handicrafts, and other aspects of cultural heritage. 10 Schools were selected from a pool of 33 schools to undergo a training on the basics of App Design and Development and teams are expected to submit their applications on November 21st,2011.

This fraction of young Jordanians represents the pool of talent that will continue to power Jordan’s future.