Dubai: Two engineering students in Dubai have designed an award-winning mobile application that teaches children to save water and energy in a fun way.
The app, called Dewa Run, is a mobile edutainment app that was launched by two Canadian University Dubai students in collaboration with the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa).
The app was made available in the App Store earlier this month.
Dewa Run allows players aged seven and up to “run as fast as they can and collect as much water drops as they can while dodging obstacles to kelp keep their city clean”.
Pedram Parvaz, a member of the university’s innovation community, Lighten Up, along with his friend Bezhan Odinaev, came up with the idea for the game-based app that was fielded in last year’s Dewa App Master Competition.
The duo went on to take the fifth place in the competition, winning Dh10,000 from Dewa to help further develop the app.
“It was quite a challenge to create and develop a concept that was both educational and entertaining, in just one month,” Parvaz said.
“The idea we came up with involves players helping to keep their city clean by running as fast as possible, collecting water drops and trash while dodging different obstacles. The aim is to teach children to conserve water and energy and to illustrate the impact this would have on our environment,” he added.
Developing the app was one thing, finding the time to do it was another. Parvaz, who also works while studying, said the task was challenging but they managed to achieve it nonetheless.
“Bezhan and I could only work during the weekends; we would start a Skype call at 10am and before we knew it, it was dark outside and we were still working on something we started in the morning.”
