A group of female students from King Saud University - Department of Computer Science - were able to transcend with their graduation project from just another research that takes them from the stage of study to practical life, to a real achievement that is not only added to their personal achievements, but also to the record of honorable Saudi scientific achievements, as the students won first place in the "Best Presentation" award at the Middle East level - at the third conference for graduation projects organized by Zayed University in Dubai.

The project, called “Go Tour,” was an Android mobile application that would help tourists in Istanbul plan a full day trip, taking into account the opening and closing times of places, the weather, their proximity to the tourist, and other things.

The project was completed by a group of students from the Computer Science Department: Khawla Al-Salem, Hiba Al-Muaiqal, Haifa Al-Ajlan, Khawla Al-Rais, Noura Al-Fantookh, and under the supervision of Dr. Aisha Sifkali.

“Winning was not a surprise, but a shock for us. ‘Shock’ is the most appropriate expression for what actually happened to us when the results were announced,” said student Khawla Al Salem, one of the project participants. She explained: “Although we were confident of winning one of the positions at the beginning of our trip to Dubai, we were surprised when the presentation was reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, just five minutes before the presentation. In addition, we had previously requested a projector to be provided so that we could display the application on our mobile phone, and we were surprised when the organizers apologized five minutes before the presentation. In addition, the new slides we added to the presentation did not work on the device, which forced us to display the old slides. These events were confusing to the point that they ruled out the chance of winning.”

She added: "In order to remedy what happened, we invited the judges and attendees who wished to visit after the presentation to view the application, and I believe that the quality of the application was a strong reason for winning."

As for the difficulties they faced while preparing the project, Al-Salem said: We wanted to implement the project in the city of Riyadh, but the directions service was not supported in Google Maps for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. After contacting Google, we were informed that the directions service would not be available until a year or eight months at the very least. Accordingly, we had no choice but to look for an alternative, and we finally chose Istanbul as a famous tourist city.

Regarding the nature of the application, she explained: It contains a database of places divided into six categories: museums, restaurants, shopping malls, landmarks, hotels, and information about each place such as opening and closing times, location map, contact numbers, and links to their private sites. Based on this data, it provides many services, including guiding the user to the places closest to his place of residence; for example, the nearest restaurant or museum. These places can be added to favorites to go to them again. Currently, work is underway to add a friend invitation service through Twitter.

She added: The application also provides a service for planning a full-day trip based on the user's previously entered data, as it determines the most appropriate museum and restaurant according to their proximity to the user's place of residence, taking into account the opening and closing times of the restaurant and the nature of the atmosphere.

 The last service provided by the application is providing the user with the embassy numbers for his country, its data, and a map showing the way to it from his place of residence, and allowing him to contact it directly immediately upon pressing its numbers.

It is worth noting that this achievement is a positive indicator of the transformation of graduation projects in Saudi universities from mere accumulated research into real innovative projects that contribute to supporting the national economy.