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Qatar University’s (QU) innovative high school outreach project, Life is Engineering Project (LIEP), ended its fifth cycle with its traditional final race at Lusail International Circuit and a ceremony held recently to celebrate the winning teams. |
It was also an opportunity for the College of Engineering (CENG) to honour the project’s sponsors - Qapco, Raytheon and ExxonMobil (gold sponsors) and Rasgas, Qatar Shell and Dolphin Energy (silver sponsors).
This year’s LIEP was held in partnership with Qatar Motors and Motorcycles Federation and Williams F1.
Of the seven schools that made the finals out of 15 that participated in the project, the team from Tarek bin Zeyad Independent Secondary School for Boys emerged as the winners with a prize trip to Japan to visit the Nissan and Toyota car assembly lines.
The second and third place winners were Jassem bin Hamad Independent School for Boys and Omar bin Abdulaziz Independent Secondary School for Boys, respectively.
Also participating in the finals were Al Forqan Independent Secondary School for Boys, Mosab bin Omair Independent Secondary School for Boys, Mohamed bin Abdulwahab Independent Secondary School for Boys and Ahmed bin Hanbal Independent Secondary School for Boys.
The celebration event was attended by QU vice-president and chief financial officer Dr Homaid Abdulla al-Madfa, V-P and chief academic officer Dr Mazen Hasna, CENG dean Dr Rashid Alammari, Qapco Learning & Development manager Abdulla Ahmad Naji, Raytheon - Integrated Defense Systems V-P Yezen Munir, Rasgas Commissioning manager Taleb al-Athba, ExxonMobil Qatar Inc Project specialist Khalid al-Sulaiti and Qatar Shell Research & Technology Centre QSTP-LLC University Collaboration manager Maha Sultan al-Mannai.
In his remarks, Dr al-Madfa congratulated the teams, saying: “This project has continued to attract secondary school students to the science and engineering field of study and has helped raise the interest of many to different engineering majors.” He also thanked the sponsors, LIEP organising committee and the participating schools.
“To date, we have impacted the lives of 750 students in this project and expect to continue to draw even more as Qatar’s progress requires engineers in all sectors,” Dr Alammari noted.
Meanwhile, Munir said: “We encourage more and more students to get excited about engineering, science and math so they can play a big role in Qatar National Vision 2030.”
“It is up to organisations like ours - and those of our academic partners - to foster a generation of technical experts and leaders who can add value locally and compete globally,” stressed al-Sulaiti.
Reebeh pointed to Qapco’s longstanding partnership with QU, saying: “It is a tremendous privilege to sponsor this event and to support the youth of Qatar.”
Al-Athba noted that RasGas has been a proud supporter of LIEP since 2009. “By participating in and supporting this initiative, RasGas fosters both the professional and personal journeys of our young students.”
Dolphin Energy GM Adel Ahmed Albuainain said, “Dolphin Energy has helped strengthen the link between academia and industry and has played a role in developing awareness about the importance of science and engineering.”
On her part, al-Mannai said: “Our collaboration on this initiative is testimony to our continued efforts to help foster a knowledge-based society in
Qatar.”
