Press Release

In a bid to drive awareness of mobile assistive applications for people with disabilities, LG Electronics in association with the Seoul National University and the Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services today hosted its award ceremony for the Assistive Applications Design Competition. The awards ceremony of the competition conducted as part of AT EDUCOM 2015 was held at the Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Center at the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The competition was launched by the Assistive Technology Center of Sharjah City of Humanitarian Services in a bid to spread awareness around the importance of assistive application technologies that empower people with disabilities. The competition was designed to motivate UAE university students and nurture them on developing new innovative applications which can truly enrich the lives and ensure independence for people with disabilities.

During the first phase, over 40 university students across the country applied for the program with 17 brilliant students moving forward to the final round. The 17 finalists later took part in a two-week training program in August that trained them on developing android based applications using the flagship LG G4. Out of the 17 finalists, four key applications were developed as a direct result of the training, which were ranked at the awards ceremony today.

“For LG Electronics, this is an important cause for us and we are sincerely grateful for the remarkable support and cooperation the UAE leaders and leading universities have provided to this cause. This highly commendable competition has given UAE students across all nationalities a platform to use mobile technologies to help push boundaries and create a better world for people with disabilities to live in,” said Mr. D.Y.Kim, President of LG Electronics Gulf.

The awards ceremony was attended by His Excellency Sheikh Fahim Bin Sultan Al Qasimi alongside 70 senior officials from universities across the country. In addition, the judging panel included Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Qasimi - General Manager of the EGOV department in Sharjah, Mr.Wooill Chung - CFO of LG Electronics Gulf Corporation, Professor Sangmook Lee from Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) center at Seoul National University, Ms. Rabab Abd Al Wahab from the Assistive Technology Center and Mr. Issa Almoksheb.

Commenting at the award ceremony, Dr. Sang-Mook Lee, Professor, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Director of Quality of Life Technology Industrial Infrastructure Development Center at Seoul National University said, “I have been with the students in the training program in August and I found their performance extremely impressive. It was heartwarming to see their eagerness to build feasible assistive technology. According to me, all of the students are winners.”

In addition to an all-expenses paid trip to visit LG’s world-renowned headquarters in Korea, the winner of this competition, will gain an opportunity to participate in the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) conference, the largest computer science conference in Korea and other prizes.