The final race of Qatar University College of Engineering’s (QU-CENG) 8th Life is Engineering Programme (LIEP) concluded recently with Omar Bin Al Khattab Secondary School for Boys named the winners. 
The second and third-place winners were Doha Secondary School for Boys and Mosab Bin Omair Secondary School for Boys respectively, with Khalifa Secondary School for Boys winning the best award of audience.   
The final race was the final phase of the 6-month-long project. It saw the participation of 13 high schools, and was sponsored by Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) and ExxonMobil (Gold), Qatar Shell and Dolphin Energy Limited (Silver). 
The race and award ceremony were conducted at QU Stadium in the presence of QU president Dr Hassan al-Derham, CENG dean Dr Khalifa al-Khalifa, Qapco strategic Qatarisation manager Abdulrahman Sultan al-Darwish, Qatar Shell Service Company Social Investment Adviser Salah al-Malek, and CENG Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department head Prof Elsadig El Mahdi, as well as CENG faculty and high school teachers, students and parents. 
CENG dean Dr Khalifa al-Khalifa highlighted the main objective of QU 8th LIEP which is represented in simplifying the main rules of STEM subjects and motivating Qatari students to join CENG in order to lead the engineering and industrial sector in the country and discover the wide field of opportunities beyond that. 
He said: “During this programme, the participating students attended several workshops and sessions on cars assembly, design and manufacturing, and were trained by CENG experienced engineers and faculty members who transferred different technical skills to students. The main objective beyond this programme is to prepare the highly effective engineers who can contribute to the development and progress of Qatar.”
Qapco managing director and CEO Dr Mohamed Yousef al-Mulla said, “It is a tremendous privilege to be able to support this excellent initiative and to support the youth of Qatar. We need the youth of today to be passionate about engineering, and to learn and understand more about the concept of engineering so that they will want to continue to study it at university. That is why this competition is so beneficial to the students.”
ExxonMobil Qatar president and general manager Alistair Routledge said: “At ExxonMobil Qatar, we believe that society’s progress increasingly depends upon the products of educated minds. If we are to be prepared for the challenges of tomorrow, it is critical that we ensure our students are prepared with the right skills for the science, technology, engineering and math jobs that will be so critical in the future.”