DOHA, QATAR – The Education City Shelf Project was announced the best undergraduate research project at Carnegie Mellon Qatar’s annual Meeting of the Minds research symposium. In addition to undergraduate research, postgraduate work was also recognized at the event. The Locality-Aware Reduce Task Scheduling for MapReduce in Cloud Computing project was selected as the best postgraduate initiative. The annual competition took place April 26 at the university’s campus, where students showcased their research and projects through posters, videos and other visual aids.

Nothing captures Carnegie Mellon’s mission better than Meeting of the Minds. It’s a unique Carnegie Mellon tradition, both on the main campus in the United States and in Qatar. These projects demonstrate Carnegie Mellon’s emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration to solve real-world problems. “Meeting of the Minds is an opportunity for us to highlight some of the research that is taking place by students at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and this year we are proud to see many new and exciting projects,” said John Robertson, Ph.D., Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. “Engaging students in research projects is valuable at both the Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh and here in Qatar, however, it is of particular importance in Qatar as we are working hard to help develop a culture of innovation as well as expand the research capacity in Qatar.” Twenty-seven undergraduate and 18 postgraduate research posters were featured in the symposium in the categories of Computer Science, Information Systems and Liberal Arts and Sciences. Undergraduate students demonstrated an extensive range of projects from indoor navigation for the visually impaired to the use of sensors and wireless technology to inform drivers of the availability of parking spaces. The postgraduate research included Arabic natural language processing and the development of energy-efficient, low-cost desalination technology for creating new, affordable water sources from brackish water. The Liberal Arts and Sciences research analyzed the effects of emotion on mathematical learning. Several students from the Pittsburgh Architecture department also displayed their projects. The best undergraduate project prize was awarded to Rashid Alkaabi, Olympia Datta, Asma Hamid and Abdulmunim Kelzieh for their creative project titled “ECShelf.” “Our project is a virtual network which connects charity organizations to people who want to donate books. This is an important solution to a very large problem and we believe that education should be free to all. We used teamwork to get us to where we are now and the problems we encountered were addressed through meetings and good communication. All the hard work has paid off and we feel a great sense of accomplishment,” said Rashid Alkaabi, who was project manager. Samreen Anjum, who worked on a computer science project dedicated to helping the visually impaired, won the second undergraduate prize for her project titled “Place Recognition for Indoor Blind Navigation.” Amal Al-Amri, Ghada Al-Sooj, Aamir Masood and Allan Reeves won third place with their “Assignment Deadline Tracker,” which helps students and faculty to follow assignment deadlines. The postgraduate prize was awarded to Mohammad Hammoud, who presented a tool that would help solve an ongoing problem within the field of computer science. “I am very proud that we, here at Carnegie Mellon Qatar’s cloud computing lab, were able to devise a tool that can help solve an issue within Google’s model. It is a major achievement for me and I think my idea has outshined the others because it is very neat, simple and can be easily integrated,” he said. A review committee consisting of experts from Qatar’s academic institutions and industry sectors reviewed the presentations and selected the best projects and posters. The review committee included representatives from TAMUQ, WCMCQ, Qatar University, VCU Qatar, GSDP, QP, SEC, ExxonMobil, Qatar Shell Research & Tech Park, Doha Bank, Aspire, Williams F1, QSTP, Fuego, ictQatar, Total Qatar and Qatari Diar. A highlight of this year’s Meeting of the Minds was the newly added General Secretariat for Development and Planning category, which awards the two best projects that contribute to the Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030. The winners of the undergraduate award were, Mohamed Al Haddad, Ghanim Al Sulati, Fatima Muja and Rana Khalil, for their project titled “Organ Donation awareness.” Lichen Han won the postgraduate prize in this category for his project titled “Advanced Water Treatment Method for Brackish Water Desalination.” Dr. Barak Saeed Yehya, General Secretariat for Development Planning said, “The projects were all very good, these students have been taught to a level where they can think in an organized way, come up with research and defend it. Several of these projects were in-line with the Qatar National Development Strategy that was launched by His Highness a few weeks ago. The organ donation project and the water treatment project were innovative and both supported Qatar’s National Vision.” 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 is an annual Carnegie Mellon initiative that contributes to the four pillars of the QNV 2030 and the National Development Strategy 2011-2016,” Robertson said.