Dar Al-Hekma student shines at STEAM Innovation Challenge

JEDDAH — The team of Dar Al-Hekma University's senior student Maha Moussa won the first prize at the three-day STEAM Innovation Challenge held in KAUST recently. Dr. Suhair Al-Qurashi, president of Dar Al-Hekma, was pleased with her student’s success. “First of all I would like to thank KAUST for this great initiative. Sustainability is of great importance to us. We have made it our theme for this academic year. Sustainability ensures that we have water and resources, and by practicing sustainability we protect the environment for future generations. I am also very proud of Maha for being part of a group that won this competition. It proved again that Dar Al-Hekma students are well equipped to take on challenges and are team players.” “Maha’s achievement makes us very proud. Not only did she demonstrate that Dar Al-Hekma students can hold their own when put to the challenge with both Saudi and international students, but she demonstrated the importance of involving visual communicators in the process of innovation. Surrounded by engineers and scientists, Maha made her mark bringing different, but not less important, skills to the table,” said Dr. Cordula Peters, Department Chair for Visual Communication at Dar Al-Hekma University. The STEAM Innovation Challenge is an intensive three-day event held in KAUST for university students; it was first run in April 2016. The challenge involved up to 170 students from KAUST and other Saudi universities, including Dar Al-Hekma. The objective of STEAM is that student teams develop and present well-defined solutions to three major real world challenges developed in partnership with a corporate partner in a matter of three days. During the event, all participating students were put into groups of around six students. Dar Al-Hekman's Moussa ended up in a group made up of Saudis, a Brazilian, and a British. Her group went on to win the first prize in the category “Living Spaces: How we can drive creation and adaptation of sustainable buildings for people”. The topic is aligned with the Saudi Vision 2030 of achieving environmental sustainability as well as with Dar Al-Hekma University’s 2016-17 theme. “We had to come up with an idea to provide a sustainable way of living. The problem is that Saudis use 70 percent of electricity for air-conditioners only, so we decided to create a service called Wafferha, which is a mobile application to promote installing insulation for residential sites. This service will benefit citizens in so many aspects as they will save electricity and money. The project was carried out in three intensive days of research and design,” said Moussa. “The fact that despite being a graphic design graduate I was able to win a technology and science competition makes me proud. Dar Al-Hekma University students learn a lot about research and I think that's what made us ready to participate in the competition,” said Moussa.