The General Authority for Regulating the Telecommunications Sector (TRA) announced opening registration for its first virtual winter innovation camp for UAE nationals and GCC nationals residing in UAE. The winter camp, which runs from December 20-24, aims to prepare youth and invest their mid-year break in mastering how to deal with robotics and artificial intelligence, with a primary focus on ICT.
The winter camp complements the Summer Innovation Camp organized virtually by TRA in its latest edition, where the TRA will deploy tech labs to students participating from their homes, under the theme “An ICT Lab at Every Home”, to cultivate a culture of tech home labs to develop the skills of the future generation.
Commenting on this camp, H.E. Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, TRA Director General, said: “Building national cadres is our top priority, as we strive to enable younger generations to acquire the skill sets to lead the future ICT sector, deal with cutting-edge technologies and adapt the same towards achieving the goals of our country. Based on our belief that the building process begins at the early stages of our children's lives, and being a continuous process, we launched the Winter Innovation Camp to complement what we have achieved in the Summer Innovation Camp, where we sensed the desire of our children to learn more about robotics and AI, and to gain hands-on experience helping them decide their future discipline."
Mr. Al Mansoori stressed that the inauguration of the Winter Innovation Camp affirms our commitment to the innovation approach adopted by the UAE, adding: "Time is a decisive factor in the development and advancement of nations. Successful countries are keen to help their children use their time for developing their potential and acquiring new skills. Through the Winter Innovation Camp, we will make the best of our children’s winter holiday, and we will promote and spread a culture of innovation among the Emirati youth in ICT, all while instilling the seeds of knowledge, and encouraging them to excel and innovate, as part of the efforts to build and prepare the UAE youth talents.
During the camp, students will build tech projects with the help of digital training materials provided by the TRA and delivered to students at home in collaboration with Noon. The TRA will also provide technical support to students through a dedicated training staff available on the project platform. This is in addition to providing training materials on the TRA Virtual Academy platform. During the 5-day camp, students will enter the TRA Virtual Academy platform and the project’s communication platform to look at digital resources to help them achieve their tasks and build their initial projects during summer. Final projects are to be submitted by the end of the second week of the camp. The owners of best projects will be announced at the end of the camp, where the TRA has valuable prizes for the winners.
The TRA virtually organized the 6th Summer Innovation Camp as a reflection of TRA’s commitment to corporate social responsibility towards Emirati students by equipping them with the necessary skills relevant to smart cities; safe use of technology and social media; design and arts; creativity and shaping the future; building constructive skills, and other activities.