DOHA, QATAR – Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar hosted two outreach workshops this weekend. Ibtikar Qatar, the Information Systems Innovation competition for high school seniors and juniors, kicked off with an informative workshop Saturday, November 21. CS4Qatar, the series of Computer Science workshops designed for computer science educators and students in Qatar, also took place on Saturday with a professional development workshop for teachers on the topic of developing a computer science first-year curriculum.
“Carnegie Mellon has always taken pride in leading outreach events that positively impact its local community,” said Charles E. Thorpe, Dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar. “This tradition has carried on to our campus in Qatar with large potential impact in this part of the world.”
This year marks the second year for the Ibtikar Qatar competition. “Last year’s program was a great success,” said Selma Limam Mansar, Ph.D., Information Systems program coordinator at Carnegie Mellon Qatar. “The students really challenged themselves to think innovatively and came up with some very plausible ideas in response to last year’s theme of the environment. With the number of students participating in the workshop this year, it promises to be a very dynamic and interesting challenge.”
Ibtikar, which mean “innovation” in Arabic, was created as a holistic approach to service learning where high school students get involved with solving a current real-world issue using information technology mentored by Carnegie Mellon Qatar students, while at the same time raising their interest in the dynamic field of Information Systems. The theme of this year’s competition is to use information systems to support diabetic patients to better manage their chronic illness. “We selected this theme because of the dramatic increase in the incidence of diabetes in Qatar and around the world in the recent years. We felt we could make a difference by raising young adults’ awareness on this health issue.” said Limam Mansar.
The program is two-parts, starting with a workshop in November that leads to the poster competition in January. At the workshop, the student teams learned the rules of the competition as well as the role innovation and Information Systems play in the marketplace. Students were exposed to healthcare information systems. They also learned how to design a poster to explain their project and to brainstorm ideas. This year 100 students from 11 schools attended the workshop. Teachers attended a separate workshop led by professor Randy Weinberg, director of the information systems program at Carnegie Mellon. The workshop was an open floor to discuss how high school students can be prepared to enter the field of Information Systems.
CS4Qatar for Teachers targets Computer Science educators in Qatar. The workshop focused on helping teachers develop computer science curricula for high school students. Teachers discussed how to design curricula that better suit their students’ backgrounds, raise their interest levels, help them remain engaged, and increase their awareness level of technology and computer science.
Mark Stehlik, assistant dean for undergraduate education in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, delivered the workshop. “Most first computer science courses – both at the high school and university level – tend to focus on programming skills and not on enduring computer science concepts. This workshop discusses ongoing work at Carnegie Mellon and other institutions, as well as ways to inject more computer science concepts into initial courses,” said Stehlik.
The demand for such development workshops for teachers is increasing. There were 55 applicants from 27 schools around Qatar, a significant increase over prior years. “The Computer Science group at Carnegie Mellon Qatar has been very active in the past years to help spread technology awareness and knowledge in the society,” said Khaled Harras, Ph.D., Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon Qatar. “One of the earliest events that has now become a tradition at Carnegie Mellon Qatar is CS4Qatar for Teachers. The hope is that by connecting with these teachers and raising their awareness of the advances in computer science and technology, our impact would extend further down to the students and ultimately transform their learning experience to better match future requirements for our nation and region.”
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With more than a century of academic excellence and distinguished research, Carnegie Mellon University is a leader in education with real-world applications. Consistently top ranked, the University has more than 11,000 students, 72,000 alumni and 4,000 faculty and staff globally. Core values of innovation, creativity, collaboration and problem solving provide the foundation for everything we do.
At the invitation of Qatar Foundation, Carnegie Mellon joined Education City in 2004. Here, Qatar Foundation created a unique center for scholarship and research that is the ideal complement to Carnegie Mellon’s mission and vision. Students from Qatar and 30 different countries enroll at our world-class facilities in Education City. Carnegie Mellon Qatar offers undergraduate programs in business administration, computer science and information systems, as well as executive and corporate education. Learn more at qatar.cmu.edu.
