Team Nazer has taken first place in the hackathon held alongside the Qassim Entrepreneurship Forum, Riyad 26, at the King Khalid Cultural Centre in Buraidah. More than 350 teams took part in the competition, presenting a range of innovative ideas and solutions, and the forum honoured the top three at its close.

Participating teams went through successive stages of idea development, mentoring and evaluation before 127 projects and 47 teams reached the final presentation in front of the judging panel.

Nazer team leader Dina Al-Awad said the idea grew out of a search for a way to reduce electricity waste. The result is a mobile app that tracks registered meters and alerts users when consumption rises. She said the hackathon allowed the team to develop the idea and test several of its aspects, adding that the win marks the start of the most important stage: turning the solution into a project that can be implemented and grow.

Second place went to Raqeeb, which team leader Lulwa Al-Ghudayyir described as an online gateway that uses artificial intelligence to detect fraud in dates and is used at seasonal date festivals. Third place went to Ma'bar, an app that brings together all relevant government bodies and acts as a traditional transaction follow-up agent.

Omar Asiri, general manager of the company running and supervising Riyad 26, said the competition aims beyond naming winners: it seeks to encourage participants to keep developing their solutions, build on the experience they gained and enter future competitions. He noted that the Prince Faisal bin Mishaal bin Saud bin Abdulaziz Community Foundation, Mujtama'i, has adopted the Raqeeb project.