Gharib and Katbeh receive 2021 FIRST Global Challenge Excellence Award
Published Nov 01, 2021
STEM experts Dr. Mohamed Gharib and Tala Katbeh from the Texas A&M at Qatar Office of Advancement have received the Francisco José de Caldas Award for Sustainable Excellence for mentoring Team Qatar and Team Afghanistan in the 2021 FIRST Global Challenge.
The FIRST Global Challenge is an annual robotics competition that invites each country to send a team to compete in a Robotics Olympics, which is based on the 14 Grand Challenges of Engineering identified by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.
Team Qatar and Team Afghanistan competed among teams from 176 countries in this year’s competition. Team Qatar consisted of 17 middle and high school students from 11 different schools in Qatar who worked as part of the STEM Hub Robotics Club (SHRC) initiative at Texas A&M at Qatar in cooperation with Qatar National Research Fund. Team Afghanistan consisted of nine female students who arrived in Qatar in late August 2021 and received extensive training and coaching by Gharib and Katbeh after their arrival.
Team Qatar and Team Afghanistan placed 18th and 28th, respectively. Also, Team Afghanistan received the Judges Award in recognition of their perseverance and furthering of FIRST Global values despite extraordinary obstacles.
The Francisco José de Caldas Award for Sustainable Excellence is awarded to an individual who helped to create strong and sustainable FIRST Global programs and helped FIRST Global grow, and has been able to impact and positively influence students attending the FIRST Global Challenge.
Gharib started the SHRC in 2019 to use robotics to enhance, supplement and enrich science and math learning experiences for secondary students; to put together a team of talented students from different schools in Qatar whose interests are in engineering in general and robotics in particular; and to prepare the students to participate in international competitions representing Qatar.