Summary
Abdulrahman Al-Taweel, a senior Computer Science student at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), has won first place in the inaugural Sifr Prize for his essay on auditing reporting bias in medieval Levantine earthquake records. Selected from 156 international submissions, Al-Taweel also received an honorable mention for a second essay on Maghrebi-Andalusi manuscripts.
Doha, Qatar — Abdulrahman Al-Taweel, a senior student in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), has been awarded first place in the inaugural Sifr Prize. CMU-Q is a Qatar Foundation partner university.
The Sifr Prize is an independent essay competition focused on science and technology in the Arab world. The competition challenges entrants with the prompt: “What should exist for science and technology in the Arab world, but doesn’t?” Entrants are required to identify a specific regional problem where the primary bottleneck is technical, and then outline the scientific or engineering research and development needed to solve it.
Al-Taweel’s winning essay, “Auditing the silence: A reporting-bias surface for the medieval Levantine earthquake record,” was selected from a competitive pool of 156 submissions from 29 countries. In addition to his winning submission, Al-Taweel also received an honorable mention for a second essay titled “A script-conditioned reader for Maghrebi-Andalusi scientific manuscripts.” Both essays stood out to the judging panel for their problem definition, technical depth, actionability, and insight.
The Sifr Prize was launched earlier this year by Ubadah Sabbagh, an MIT-educated neuroscientist. The prize was created to bridge a gap in the region’s scientific community, providing a platform for technologists and experts to propose actionable technical solutions to local problems.
