Arabnet Arabnet

On Saturday, Febraury 1, 2014, ArabNet held the second competition of the Developer Tournament at the Dubai Knowledge Village. Participants from all over the country gathered to compete head to head to win the title of Code Master, and all that the name brings with it. Those who weren't after the title wanted to benefit from the opportunity to network, build their coding skills in the Code Lab workshop, and connect with companies in the Tournament's focused Job Fair

Fabio D’Emilio, GM of Technology at Intigral and a judge at the tournament, commented on the quality of developers saying: “It’s interesting to see how the developer community is actually growing in the region. The level is pretty good, but in general, the quality of developers is really high.” He added that he was also one of last year’s judges and has seen a major difference in the second tournament: “It’s a great place to meet people, and a great place to actually understand where the overall developer community is at.”

Farid Gharazeddine from Google Dubai, and another tournament judges, said “I was pleasantly surprised at the standards of both the coding and the organization of the competition. I’m really impressed by some of the coding that I’ve seen today.”

Ahmad Adel from Microsoft and a third member of the judging panel concurred with his colleagues on the high level of skills that were present in the Tournament, adding: "I come from a software development background, so for me it is good to listen and see how the young generation of developers are looking at development and how works. It is also good for me to share whatever I can with them. It’s a mutual benefit."

Meet the winners...

The tournament ended with 4 top developers that were crowned as UAE’s Code Masters and received $5000 in total cash prizes. The winners were: 

Code Master Kumail Tinwala in 1^st place:

"I participated in this competition to be challenged, and I was pretty challenged!"

Code Ninja Bilal Khartabil in 2^nd place:

"It was very interesting. The different rounds tested the different skills I had within a limited time frame. I would definitely participate again, at least to benchmark my skills against the other great developers that were here. It is also a very nice way to socialize with other developers."

Code Wizard Andrew Crosio in 3^rd place

When asked about the secret to winning this competition, he said:

"It really comes down to passion. If you like what you do, you will be good at it no matter what it is."

Code Warrior Wojciech Gaca in 4^th place:

"The competition as a whole is definitely worth it. It is fun. If I were to participate again, I would try to create a front-end library or module that I can use, especially for the second round." 

The code masters will all represent UAE and compete with 20 expert Arab developers in the final Regional Championship that will be held at the ArabNet Digital Summit 2014 in Dubai.