Five online competitions launched to engage students during virus outbreak in Saudi Arabia

The General Department of Education in Riyadh has launched, during the period from April 9 to April 20, five online competitions for students covering different domains.
These competitions include best short film, the online student activity hackathon 2020 for the best coronavirus crisis solutions, ideas and initiatives, robots and coronavirus, the best daily schedule, and a message to the heroes of education.
The director general of the Department of Education in Riyadh, Hamad Al-Wahaibi, said that the activities and events aimed to encourage the spirit of competition among students and for them to invest in their leisure time at home for their benefit.
He said: “These competitions give students the opportunity to showcase their talents, experiences and creativity during this crisis, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which we and the whole world are experiencing.”  
Al-Wahaibi called on parents to urge their daughters and sons to participate in these educational competitions as they combined learning with fun.
The assistant director general for educational affairs, Abdullah Al-Ghannam, said that in the competitions’ topics, standards and requirements, the short film competition was a visual production of no more than two minutes on one of two subjects — the Kingdom’s efforts in fighting coronavirus and the efforts of the Ministry of Education in promoting distance learning.

Al-Ghannam said that the online student activity hackathon 2020 was a competition through which students put forward creative technology solutions for the coronavirus crisis.
He added: “In the robots and coronavirus competition, students compete to design robotic projects as a modern innovative means in the fields of raising awareness about coronavirus and preventing it. In the best message to education heroes competition, students compete to write a letter of no more than 300 words to the heroes of education.”
“In the best daily schedule competition, students compete to prepare and design a diversified model schedule for daily activities and work at home.”
Al-Ghannam said that entries to the short film competition would be received via the email address media@riyadhedu.gov.sa, while the rest of the entries would be received at r.nashat20@gmail.com.
Winners of the first five places will receive cash prizes; a prize of SR2,000 ($530) has been allocated for first place, SR1,500 for second, SR1,000 for third, SR750 for fourth, and SR500 for fifth place.