Participants and faculty at the Invent for the Planet competition, organised by Texas A&M University at Qatar.
Doha: Students from across Education City showcased their innovation skills at the Invent for the Planet competition, organised by Texas A&M University at Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university. Over 48 hours, participants had to design, build and present ideas and technologies of benefit to the world.
Started by Texas A&M University’s main campus in College Station, Texas (USA), Invent for the Planet asked students from more than 24 participating universities around the world to tackle the most challenging issues facing the world today in just 48 hours.
At each location, teams were formed based on a shared interest in one of the available need statements.
Then over the following two days, the teams researched their topic, collaborated with mentors, came up with a plan and built a simple prototype. Each team then presented its product to a panel of judges comprised of faculty from different EC campuses and industry experts.
Texas A&M at Qatar’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) organised and hosted the Qatar competition, in collaboration with the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program at the main campus. The winning team from Qatar will now compete with other winning teams around the globe from 24 universities participating from America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. For the second year running, the winning team from Qatar has made it to the top six teams worldwide.
Dr. Bilal Mansoor, CTL Director at Texas A&M University at Qatar, said, “Invent for the Planet provides a unique high-impact multiversity learning opportunity for TAMUQ engineering students to collaborate with students from different majors in Education City, bringing together diverse perspectives and skillsets. Through the intense and exciting process of ideation, prototyping, and iteration, students are pushed to think beyond their usual boundaries, challenge assumptions, and learn from failure. In less than two days, they not only develop innovative solutions to real-world problems, but also gain valuable teamwork and leadership skills that are essential for success in any field.”
First place and a $1,000 prize went to team Eco-Engineers - Abdulaziz Al Fakhroo, Hind Fakhroo, Joud Massalkhi, Meera Jarrar, Roudha Al Khaldi, and Punit Pande for their Solar Path, a self-healing solar cell with lens concentrator designed to lower the maintenance cost and improve the efficiency of solar panels.
Second place went to team Thirst Quenchers; Abdulla Zaza, Abdulkarim Challiwala, Gassim Ibrahim, Jaafar Ballout, Yosef Mohamad, and Youssef Mortada, for their innovation which focused on supplying clean drinking water for people in most need (specifically rural areas).
Third Place was a tie between team Restyle Revolutionists (Ghada Abdelrahman, Reem ElShabasy, Wardah Shan, Inas Mahir, Samiha Rahman) who worked on reducing textile waste and increase textile recycling through technology, and Team Disaster Link (Syed Afnan Ahmed, Nathan Braganza, Amna Cassim, Amanda Cruz, Wala Abdelhalim, and Nivinya Hemachandra) who addressed the problem of communications in the event of natural disasters.
