School IT competition held at AUS

Over 90 students from schools participating in the AUS Sharakah program took part in the 2013 AUS-Sharakah Information Technology Competition held on May 2. The competition had tracks in presentations, database development and programming skills.

The Sharakah program is an initiative between AUS and high schools across the UAE. The program includes offering workshops to teachers and staff, offering patronage of selected research, cultural, social and sporting activities and events organized by a Sharakah partner school, and the awarding of partial scholarships to deserving students to be named by the schools, and the offering university preparation courses.

Student teams from each school showcased their presentations, database development and programming skills. Nine schools from the Sharakah program participated in the competition. Dr Taha Landolsi, Dr. Fadi Aloul, Dr. Ghassan Qadah, Dr. Khaled El Fakih, Dr. Tarik Ozkul and Dr. Tamer Shanableh, faculty members from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, along with the department' s lab instructors evaluated and judged the competitions.

The event concluded with an awards ceremony and cash prizes were given to the top three winning teams of each track. Ali Shuhaimy, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at AUS, congratulated them for their achievements at the awards ceremony. "This is just one of the activities that the Sharakah Program has been engaging in with the schools. I'm sure that this experience will benefit each of you in your lives," he said.

"If you like things to do with IT, this university is the place for you. These programs will offer you a premier opportunity," said Dr. Leland Blank, Interim Dean of the College of Engineering.

Mohamed Diab Al Mousa, Advisor at the Sharjah Amiri Court was also present at the awards ceremony, and distributed the awards along with the judges, Ali Shuhaimy, Dr. Leland Blank and Ibrahim Barakat, Principal of Al Shola Private School.

"This competition is about the latest development in information and computing technology, such as mobile phone applications, cloud computing and data security," said Dr. Abdulrahamn Al Ali, technical chair of the competition and faculty member at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Abd Al Nour Sami, a high school student from Al Shola Private School, delivered a presentation on information security. "I did this presentation to show that I have many ideas to make every user of the Internet secure," he added.

The IT competition was organized in collaboration between the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the College of Engineering and the Office of Enrollment Management at AUS.