With the exhibition of 15 developed applications produced by Omani developers, The Information Technology Authority (ITA) celebrated the conclusion of Oman Summer of Code 2015 yesterday at Muscat Grand Mall under the auspices of Dr. Salim Bin Sultan Alruzaiqi, CEO of ITA and with the presence of a number of IT specialists, academic and professionals.
Oman Summer of Code is a national youth competition in the field of application development and IT solutions, launched by ITA in 2013 for the first time,    to encourage application developers in general, and applications based on open source software in particular to work on various projects using Free and Open Source software to create applications that can be adopted in different work environments over a 3 months period.  The program also aims to help create job opportunities  through self-employment by encouraging participants to establish Small and  Medium IT enterprises; thus, enriching the local market with IT solutions developed by Omani Youth. To gain exposure to real-world software development     scenarios, participants walked through intensive training and orientation program in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and entrepreneurship while implementing the assigned projects to them along with   getting business opportunities and cash stipends.
Representing ITA and talking about the importance of the program to the Omani youth, Mr. Khalil Ibrahim Almaawali, executive projects at ITA, says “The most important objective of the project is to spread awareness about the possibility of adopting Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the IT solutions for institutions and individuals, as the Free Software derives its strength from the rapid development and interaction in the communities.  The effective factors attracting the use of FOSS are to facilitate the process of owning the technology, localization of global expertise in the local communities and encouraging SMEs to enter the ICT sector.”
 On the number of participants and projects submitted this year, Almaawali says “in the 3^rd edition of Oman Summer of Code, 50 IT enthusiasts joined the competition and we received 19 software development projects from various government and private entities targeting institutional uses and mobile application development. 29 of the accepted participants have made it to the final stage and successfully managed to complete 15 projects.”
The ceremony included honoring sponsors, mentors and members of the evaluation team, in addition to honoring the promising projects and participants. 5 of evaluated projects honored as the best promising projects which are:  the Library Management System developed by Maitha Zahir Alma’mmari, Sumaiya Ali Alrawahi and Maysa Mohammad Albusaidi, for Public Authority for Civil Aviation. Another honored projects was also the Banking Reconciliation System for Bank Muscat developed by Laila Hashil AlJulandani and The Correspondents Affairs System which is developed for Oman Establishment for Press, Publication and Advertising, by Ali Yousuf AlAmri. Among the honored projects was also a mobile application developed by Ahmed Salim Alkathiri, for Dofar municipality which enables the follow-up of the construction works electronically.
The 5^th project was the financial aid system which helps to facilitate and accelerate the procedures for obtaining financial assistance by the Office of the Governor of Muscat. The system was developed by Gheith Hamood Alrawahi.
On the sidelines of the event, a 2days exhibition was opened to display the 15 projects qualified for the final stage and the 3 established SMEs as a result of the previous editions of Oman Summer of Code, so as to provide an opportunity to introduce the projects to visitors and market them to achieve access and exchange of experiences.
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