By Hassan Cheruppa

Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH – Robotics, a key component of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, brings in huge amount of dignity to humans by replacing manual labor and easing hazardous work, according to Hamna Mariyam Khan, Indian consul of commerce & press, information and culture.

“This revolution, which spans the entire livelihood of human enterprises, opened up new vistas of jobs and brought about a lot of dignity to the people,” she said in her keynote speech after inaugurating the 4th Robo Fest 2020 at the New Al Wurood International School (NAWIS) here at the weekend.

The curriculum drivers of NAWIS organized the festival as part of the school’s drive to nurture inquisitiveness toward the latest inventions among children at a tender age with a visionary approach that education should be used as a machine for change with grooming the younger generation to contributing to the overall betterment of society and the nation through an all-out exposure to new technologies. The school’s curriculum is unique and exemplary with incorporating the inherently intertwined new technologies of robotics, artificial intelligence as well as edu cinema in its drive to achieve holistic development of the children.

Hamna, the chief guest, lauded the great efforts made by the young tech-savvies of NAWIS in showcasing their outstanding creativity in robotics. “The students made exemplary performance with presenting their magnum opus. It is great to give a very good education, embedded in skill upgradation, to the students in the early phases of their schooling,” she said congratulating the initiatives of NAWIS to keep abreast with incorporating the latest advancement of digital transformation in the curricula.

Hamna, who is also observer of International Indian School, Jeddah, urged the younger generation to take optimum advantage of the significant change in everyday lives of mankind plus numerous jobs brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, the leaders of which are robotics and artificial intelligence. “Now, our shopping has been shifted to online marketing with coming up of Amazon, Sooq Saudi, Flipkart India and the like. We have moved from floppy disk, to CD and USB,” she said admitting that this has also resulted in huge kind of disruption with loss of jobs in the traditional realms. The consul also underlined the need for going ahead to acquire as much skill as possible to convert challenges into opportunities and thus transforming the face of the world.

She underscored the significance of using robotics to address some pressing issues such as waste management. “Robots can easily separate plastics, dry waste and wet waste from the dumping area itself and this will bring in a lot of dignity to people who are now doing it manually,” she said noting that manual scavenging is a huge problem faced by India.

L. Ramnarayan Iyer, executive editor of Saudi Gazette, S.M. Noushad, group manager of Bridgeway Group of Companies Saudi Arabia, and Hassan Cheruppa (Saudi Gazette) were the guests of honor at the event.

In his speech, Iyer congratulated the students for presenting their brilliant innovative ideas in a systematic way and briefing people on their achievements. “It is really heartening to see NAWIS providing an environment for children to explore their talent without fear. This platform will, of course, be in the future incubators of human beings with producing successful people who drive technology and life together,” he added.

Prizes and certificates to the winners were given away by the chief guest and guests of honor. The festival, which represented competitions and events with autonomous robots, aimed to encourage students to have fun while learning principles of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) and computer science. The students had to fully program their robots to perform their missions without human assistance, and for which neither joysticks nor remote controls were allowed. All the students from classes 4 to 8 were part of this festival as they had to program their robots to accomplish various assigned tasks within the given time. The students designed and developed Auto Rescue Robots called Davinci, Mars and Toborick and many other different robots with a vibrant theme titled “Climatic Squad.”

Team Davinci, consisting of Syed Unais, Abbad Ismail, and Prajin Krishnan bagged first prize in the fest while Team Mars, which included Mariyam Naseer, Sana Sarfarez and Rida Mohammed, was second and Team Toborick, comprising of Lujjain, Haifa Zubeda and Jannat Rauf Khan emerged third prize winners. The winners were chosen by a three-member jury consisting of Dr. Muhammed Abdul Majeed and Charls Rajesh Kumar from Effat University and Muhammed Abdul Samad of Electropark Company, Jeddah.

Earlier Hamna cut the ribbon to mark opening of the fest. Principal Peter Ronald welcomed the gathering and Vice Principal C. Sunil Kumar proposed the vote of thanks. The program began with recitation of a few verses from the Holy Qur’an by Ibrahim Azeem and its translation by Mohammed Gulam. Joel Mathew, a 10th grade student, gave a general introduction about Robotics while Bhuvan and Isam presented learning journey of Robotics. The Robo dance, welcome dance and Arabic dance, staged by tiny tots, mesmerized the audience.

School officials and teachers including Maya Divakar, lead coach of BEST Group of Schools, Smitha A.G., headmistress, Anees Rahman, admin & finance officer, Kassim Syed Ismail, Sameeha Ullat and Dwithy Surej were among the organizers of the festival.