Hot off the presses from WAM - Khalifa University students won the first and second prizes in the university's fourth annual Mobile Application Contest. Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR) student Ahmed Echtebi won top honours for his tourism application titled Al Murshed while his colleague Ahmed al Tunaiji won second for his university organiser program. Teams from the American University of Sharjah and the UAE University came in third and the fourth, respectively.

According to the competition's guidelines, applications submitted to the contest must be original, culturally-focused and may be released to the public, if they're good enough, of course. Given that a number of Etisalat executives either judged or attended the competition, it's safe to say we might see Mr Echtebi's tourism program on the UAE iTunes App Store sooner than later.

As The National has previously written on the potential that mobile applications have for local entrepreneurs and developers, it's encouraging to see UAE university students get involved in mobile application development today and hopefully lay the groundwork for many more of these programs to come.