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Glimpses from the new Cultural Village, (and nearby) opening 2010 in Doha, Qatar.

Solar Powered Schools in Qatar

Post: Sunday 25 April

Carnegie Mellon University Qatar played host to the unveiling of a major new initiative by GreenGulf, a renewable energy advisory company, to power Qatari schools using solar energy.

The announcement was made during an Earth Day Qatar event organised by Qatar Foundation International in collaboration with the Earth Day Network and marking World Earth Day's 40^th anniversary.

A number of high-level speakers were in attendance, including Qatar Foundation's Vice Chairman Dr Saif Al Hajari, US Ambassador Joseph LeBaron, and Beth Larson, International Education Manager of the Earth Day Network.

Omran Al Kuwari, CEO of GreenGulf, unveiled the project saying, "The region has the highest emissions per capita in the world and,we have to think about how we can reduce this impact. Qatar can become a knowledge centre for solar technology and renewable energies."

GreenGulf's 'Solar Schools' project, seeks to install solar panels in four schools in Qatar, working closely throughout the process with the students and teachers, tying the installation process with classroom education and merging the practical with the academic.

The schools are: Doha Independent Secondary School, Al Bayan Education Complex for Girls, The Yarmouk Independent Preparatory School for Boys and Al Raba'a Adiwiyya School for Girls.

The first phase will take place over the next year.

Education City Convocation 2010

Posted: Monday 3 May

Qatar Foundation is proud to host Education City’s third senior convocation this week.

The occassion will mark the graduation of almost 200 students who make up the class of 2010.

Throughout the week students will attend celebrations and mark the auspicious occasion with their graduating colleagues.

“At Senior Convocation we are honouring the achievement of the young people who are passing from Education City to the next stage in their lives,” QF’s vice-president for education, Dr Abdullah al-Thani said.

The graduates will be presented with degrees in subjects ranging from design, medicine and engineering to Islamic studies, business, computer science and foreign services.

With more than 75 different countries currently represented in the Education City student body, this year’s graduating class is also characterised by diversity.

Following the convocation celebrations, Qatar Foundation will offer graduates and the wider Qatar community a chance to share in the celebrations at a concert - to be held in the Ceremonial Court on May 5 - by Saudi Arabian singer Abdul Majid Abdullah.

QF Radio has featured interviews with Deans from the Education City Universities who have provided insights into their highlights this year. Catch more interviews with students on 91.4 FM as we celebrate throughout the week.

Microsoft boss at QSTP TECHtalk

Posted at: Sunday 25 April

Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie recently addressed Qatar Science & Technology Park’s TECHtalk on ‘Envisioning the future of technology: Toward human centric computing,’.

Over 100 government and business leaders attended the event and learnt more about how information and communications technology (ICT) can help fuel economic development; improve governance and boost initiatives across sectors such as education, healthcare and research.

Mohamed Hammoudi, country manager of Microsoft Qatar, said that the visit of Mundie underlined Microsoft’s long-term commitment to creating meaningful partnerships with businesses and governments in the region.

QSTP executive chairman Dr Tidu Maini observed that Mundie’s valuable insights would be key to governments and businesses to fully understand how ICT can effectively assist in accelerating Qatar’s efforts towards social and economic development and help keep pace with global changes.

TechTalks are held by QSTP periodically and you can sign up for alerts at www.qstp.org.qa .

Heavy Traffic Inspires 'Meeting of The Minds' Winners

Posted: Wednesday 27 April

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar held their 4th Meeting of the Minds, annual symposium ,on Tuesday night.

More than 60 students practised their skills in presenting complex research projects in an accessible way to judges and the public.
Students are able to utilise posters, videos, presentations and demonstrations to convey their concepts and they compete for various categories.

“I like the name ‘meeting of the minds’,” said Charles Thorpe, Dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar. “This is the minds of the students, showing off their research projects, meeting the minds of our external judges and visiting colleagues, with their real-world wisdom.

Twenty-seven undergraduate and twelve postgraduate research posters were featured. Categories ranged from Business Administration, Computer Science, Information Systems and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Students demonstrated a wide range of projects including Arabic lip-syncing for 3D face animation applications, exploring how IT can raise awareness about diabetes, literacy projects and educational mobile phone games to improve English literacy.

The Winners

The Best Computer Science Poster, Best Poster Design and Best Overall Project were all awarded to Dynamic Path Planning and Traffic Light Coordination for Emergency Vehicle Routing.

Team members Yi Luen Tessa and Hend Geddawi were thrilled with their win.

“The main motivation for our project was the observation that the heavy traffic in Qatar impedes the routing of emergency vehicles, which could make a critical difference between life and death,” said Hend.

Meeting of the Minds benefits members of the Qatar community by helping them to understand the importance of conducting research, and see the numerous ways that research can benefit society.

Meeting of the Minds has been held at the end of the spring term at Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh for several years, and has also become an annual tradition in Doha.

Technology in Higher Education, Conference Announced

Posted: Sunday 25 April

Five Education City universities are to be involved in a conference in November that will investigate the role of technology in learning and the opportunities it offers for higher education.

Texas A&M University at Qatar, Carnegie-Mellon University in Qatar, Georgetown University, Northwestern University in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar will play host to the conference that will bring invited speakers to comment on a variety of topices including, but not limited to:

Instructional technology, media, and design
Distributed and distance learning
Classroom technologies and design of learning environments in the new era
eLearning and learning management systems
Mobile learning and computing
Libraries and learning technologies
Faculty development in teaching with technology
High performance computing and virtualization in learning

Technology in Higher Education (THE) Conference

Monday, November 1st, 2010
Texas A&M Engineering Building in Education City
Doha, Qatar

Texas A&M and QP sign research deal

Post: Monday 3 May

Qatar Petroleum and Texas A&M University at Qatar yesterday signed a two-year, QR4.3mn, research agreement to develop technologies for boosting productivity of Qatar's oil reservoirs.

QP oil and gas ventures director Saad al-Kaabi, and Texas A&M at Qatar dean and CEO Dr Mark H Weichold were the signatories.

“QP considers this project as the beginning of what will be a long-term research collaboration with Texas A&M,” al-Kaabi said at a ceremony at Texas A&M’s campus in Education City.

HE Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Deputy Premier, Minister of Energy and Industry, and chairman and managing director of QP, has directed QP to utilise all the opportunities for joint collaboration in research both with the universities in Qatar, and Qatar Science and Technology Park, a Qatar Foundation member.

Referring to the close links shared by QP and Texas A&M, the official pointed out that 37 graduates from Texas A&M at Qatar are now at work in QP and 52 potential employees are currently learning engineering at the university.

Texas A&M at Qatar’s associate dean for research and graduate studies, Dr James C Holste, explained that the project will also provide opportunities for students to learn by experience to use research to develop better solutions to technical challenges.

“We expect that this is the first of many opportunities to work together with QP to address practical challenges to the production and utilisation of Qatar’s oil and gas resources,” he said.

Chevron and GreenGulf Sign Agreement to Study Solar Energy in Qatar

Post: Sunday 25 April

Chevron announced earlier last year that it will establish its Center for Sustainable Energy Efficiency (CSEE) at QSTP and is now in the process of building out the Center towards an opening goal of October 2010.

The company, which is investing $20m over five years in its Centre for Sustainable Energy Efficiency at Qatar Science & Technology Park, said it had appointed Mike Farshchi as research manager.

He will be responsible for working with local organisations to identify solar power, solar air conditioning and low-energy lighting technologies best suited for Qatar's climate. The collaborative partnership with QSTP hopes to spur the adoption of green technologies in Qatar, it added.

Farshchi said: "Qatar's excellent education and research base, plus abundant sunshine, provide the opportunity to introduce green technologies that benefit this region."

The Center will help to establish Qatar as a significant hub of knowledge and resource for solar tchnology development.

Public Invited to Consider Stem Cells on May 10

Post: Thursday 22 April

Qatar Foundation is pleased to announce the first Public Forum on Stem Cell Science Policy.

Event overview: This forum is part of Qatar Foundation initiative to promote stem cell research in Qatar

Target audience: General public

Objective: To provide Qatar community with updated information about stem cell science policy as well as the opportunity for the general public to ask questions and voice comments in discussions with experts in this field.

Speakers & Panel members: Distinguished guests from Qatar consisting of scientists, ethicists, Islamic scholars and policy makers

Date: Monday, May 10, 2010
Registration & Refreshments: 9:30 am
Forum: 10 am - 1 pm
Venue: Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar,
(Lecture Hall 4, Qatar Foundation)

Participation: This event is by invitation, but interested individuals can either register through denise@qmdi.qf.org.qa or take part in an online forum to send their questions and comments for the panel.

QSTP partners to research innovations in sports medicine

Post: Thursday 22 April

LCR Honda MotoGP Team have signed a partnership agreement with the Qatar Science & Technology Park to develop the RASAD technology platform which will allow monitoring the physiological strain imposed on their rider, Randy de Puniet, while riding the bike on track and during his daily physical training.
The technology will note the physical strain imposed while riding the bike on a different tracks and climate conditions and will record the real time Heart Ratio, Blood Pressure, Body Temperature and Blood Glycaemia. This will enable more person-specific physical training programs to be developed.

RASAD is a joint project between the Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) and Aspetar – Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital. QSTP Chairman, Dr Tidu Maini said: “RASAD utilises two-way communication technology to send data over a wireless network to a central server that processes the data and provides real-time customised graphical interfaces and services”.

For more about QSTP please visit:

www.qstp.org.qa

Doha Debates April Motion Barack Obama

Post: Tuesday 27 April

A predominantly Arab audience at Qatar Foundation’s Doha Debates yesterday expressed strong apprehensions about the ability of US President Barack Obama to make any real headway in resolving the Palestinian- Israeli conflict.

The motion, “This House believes Barack Obama is too weak to make peace in the Middle East”, was carried with 58 percent votes. Forty-two percent of the audience voted against the motion.

The expectations that Obama had raised in the Arab world with a speech in Cairo last year are waning as he has shown signs of retracting from his promises to effectively intervene in the Arab-Israeli conflict, argued the panellists supporting the motion.

Next debate: May 24th

Motion: to be confirmed

DOHALAND CEO receives top honours

Posted: Sunday 25 April

DOHALAND CEO Issa M al-Mohannadi was last week awarded the prestigious title of “Property Development CEO of the Year” by the Middle East Excellence Awards Institute at a ceremony in Dubai.

The seventh Middle East CEO of the Year Awards recognise the involvement of outstanding CEOs in steering their organisations onto a path of success and highlighting the reputation of the region to be one of the leading hubs of globally competitive investment initiatives.

After accepting the award Issa al-Mohannadi said: “This honour recognises the achievements of Dohaland and I am delighted to lead a team who share the vision of the country’s leaders.”

Previous winners of the award include former US vice -president and Nobel laureate Al Gore and the former prime minister of France.

The institute was created as a platform to acknowledge professionals and organisations from the region who have shown unparalleled ability to succeed. Issa M al-Mohannadi was also acknowledged for his motivation and vision in establishing the Qatar Green Building Council.

DOHALAND is a member of Qatar Foundation and was launched last year to create leading-edge, urban living concepts that integrate the heritage and culture of Qatar with modern sustainable building practise.

Kuwait takes BotBall beating off 30 schools

Post: Sunday 25 April

The machines whirred and the wheels turned, and over the weekend a new winner emerged from the 6th Regional Botball Robotics Challenge held by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q).

AL RU’YA Bilingual School from Kuwait were awarded overall champions after overcoming competition from 30 other schools from the Middle East and Zimbabwe, made up of 10 member teams.

The American School of Doha finished second while Doha College took third place in a hotly contested final. The tension in the crowd rose as anxious parents, professors and participants looked on.

A jubilant member of the Al Ru’ya team said, “We are ecstatic to be the overall champions of the competition. Last year we didn’t do very well but we learnt a lot from our mistakes and today our robots have been perfect. We won every match in the competition."

The operated robots were asked to perform challenging manoeuvres such as handling, picking and positioning small objects at designated locations.

A panel of judges evaluated the robots, for design simplicity, accuracy and task completion.

Coordinator of the computer science programme at CMU-Q Majd F Sakr said, “The computer science department at Carnegie Mellon has been organising this annual challenge which provides students with an excellent opportunity to think differently and co-ordinate as a team.

Apart from 15 teams from Qatar, there were teams from Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Zimbabwe.

The winning team will participate in the International Robotics Competition to be held in the USA later in the year.

The Vodafone Women in Qatar Book Launch

Post: Monday 19 April

A collection of essays and writings gathered from 36 Vodafone women employees or partners of employees from 23 different nationalities has been published with the support of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.

The Vodafone Women in Qatar: The Inside Story, went on sale on Saturday at the I-Spy bookshop (QR60) at the City Center Mall.
It features stories, poems, memories and impressions of life in Doha and Qatar.

All proceeds from the sale will go to the “Writer’s World” fund at Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, which will help other writers in Qatar.

The book can be bought for QR60 at the I-Spy book shop, at all Vodafone retail stores and on Vodafone’s online store at www.vodafone.com.qa

Movie Review - this week Iron Man 2nd

Post: Thursday 29 April

Thursdays, just after 7.10 am, catch the week's movie review with Eman Al-Hadi, Business Analyst at Weill Cornell Medical Collage in Qatar by day, and movie critic by night.

Next review: IronMan 2

Driven by her lifelong passion for movies and utilizing her analytical skills, Eman provides an insight and a different angle to listeners in critiquing movies out in the local theaters and on DVD.

Mira Nair to train Qatari filmmakers

Mira Nair
Image credit: Maishafilmlab

Post Sunday 25 April

The Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF) has entered into a partnership with filmmaker Mira Nair that enables aspiring Qatar-based filmmakers access to Maisha, an intensive 25-day course for ambitious aspiring directors.

The programme will be held in Kampala, Uganda from July 25 to August 16.

Created by Nair, a celebrated filmmaker who screened Amelia at DTFF 2009, Maisha provides aspiring screenwriters and film directors from around the world with access to professional training and resources.

This year will be the fist time that participants from Qatar are considered for inclusion. Qatar-based participants will vie for up to four posts. It’s where we can find the voices in filmmaking and refine them,” said Mira Nair.

“I have great belief in the Qatari vision of bringing new perspective to our craft and I am personally very excited about getting Qatar-based talent involved in the collaboration and dialogue that makes Maisha a success

“Maisha is a boot-camp for cinema. To qualify for the coveted programme, candidates must undergo a rigorous selection process that is overseen by a multicultural selection committee.

“The Maisha programme will enable Qatar-based filmmakers to refine their vision and develop the hands-on expertise required to make quality films,” said Amanda Palmer, Executive Director of DTFF. “It’s an unprecedented opportunity for aspiring talent and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with Mira Nair following her warm reception at DTFF 2009”.

Maisha (which means 'life' in Kiswahili) is a non-profit training initiative for emerging East African filmmakers providing hands-on intensive training in screenwriting, directing, producing, cinematography, editing, sound recording, and acting.

To see some of their films go to www.maishafilmlab.com .

Qatar Foundation Achieves 50% Qatarisation

Post: Monday 19 April

QATAR Foundation (QF) has achieved its 50 percent Qatarisation target. This is two years ahead of schedule, the foundation’s Human Resources Executive Director Hassan al Hammadi said on Sunday. He was quoted while speaking at the Trainee Recognition Ceremony held to honour the conpletion of trainees career development plans.

“The Foundation achieved the target at the end of last year though it had time till 2011,” Hammadi said. New targets of Qatarisation will be set on the basis of success achieved so far, he commented.

Hammadi asserted that various national development programmes organised by QF were significant contributors, such as the New Competency Framework, Aeddad Programme, Leading University Scheme and Qatar Career Fair.

DOHALAND’s new Knowledge Enrichment Centre

A new landmark moored off Doha Corniche, DOHALAND’s Knowledge Enrichment Centre (KEC) is now open to the public.
Hours are: 3:00pm to 6:00pm on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

It will serve as a link between Qatar’s rich heritage and the promising future by promoting Qatar's traditions and culture.

Measuring 91 metres long and 24 metres wide, the floating Knowledge Enrichment Centre has a gallery, theatre and exhibition space.

It symbolizes both land and sea, the desert life of the Bedouins and the maritime tradition of pearl diving and fishing, which together form the core of Qatari and regional history.
www.dohaland.com

DOHALAND is a member of Qatar Foundation.