Saeed Ahmed Ghobash, Chancellor of the United Arab Emirates University, honored the winners of the faculty, staff and students of the university in the fifth “Chancellor’s Innovation Award” for the academic year 2019/2020, in the presence of Prof. Ghaleb Al Hadrami Al Breiki - Acting Vice Chancellor and a number of faculty and students.

H. E. Chancellor of the UAEU stressed that the UAE University launches the award, as it believes in its national responsibility towards society and its vital role in spreading the culture of innovation as a basis for achieving sustainable development and wellbeing. It aims to prepare a generation of innovators who contribute to achieving growth and prosperity for the human being and supporting in creativity and excellence. It also seeks to attract university faculty and staff to participate in supporting innovative thinking and accessing innovations that contribute to providing solutions to challenges of national priority such as renewable energy, transportation, education, health, water resources, space sciences and technologies, social innovation, and administrative innovation.

He added, "The official attention that innovation attracts in the UAE reflects the vision of the leadership in foreseeing the future, applications of academic research and innovation as a culture in the educational institutions.  From this standpoint, we invite the relevant sectors and bodies from various government and private institutions to participate in the university's innovations. In addition to setting appropriate methods for developing and employing patents and contributing to providing solutions to challenges. This then will be reflected in an increase in innovative projects.”

The award for the faculty category was won by Dr. Mohammad Jawad for a communication application to help diabetics deal with their disease, and Prof. Khaled Al Tarabili and Sinan Abu Qamar for: A new and innovative way to increase the production of sustainable biofuels from the seeds of halophytic plants that grow in UAE beaches and desert.

Dr. Hamad Al Jasmi and Mahmoud Al Ahmad also won the award for the automatic identification of labor activities during construction: a machine-recognition method for capturing physiological patterns of activity by wearing sensors.  Prof. Yasser Hawass, Mohamed Sherif, and Mohamed Didarol Allam won for a system detecting and managing traffic accidents and the priority of public transport in city streets.

For the employee category, Eng.  Muthanna Ahmed and Dr. Walid Khalil won for an innovative smart system for advanced power transmission applications with an advanced safety system using additive manufacturing technology.

For the student category, the student John Victor won for development and characterization of an aluminum alloy for industrial applications in the Gulf Cooperation Council under the supervision of Prof. Abdul Hamid Murad.  The second place was won by the research team: Jawad Mustafa, Emmanuel Galewango and Amira Fares, under the supervision of Prof.  Ali Hassan Al Marzouki, for their project “The simultaneous conversion of industrial waste and carbon dioxide in a sustainable and energy efficient manner into value-added products. The student, Mohamed Zeeshan Akhtar, won under the supervision of Dr. Faraj Khalifa, for their project “Aerial Advertising.” In the third place, the student Jawaher Anwar, under the supervision of Dr. Khawla Al Kaabi, won for the “Smart Suit in Fires.”

After the honoring, a discussion session was held that dealt with several topics, including: the role of the award in the importance of consolidating and stimulating a culture of innovation in the university community, the role of women in space, the employment of artificial intelligence in the transportation sector, biofuel sources and the efforts made by the UAE in this field in preparation for the next fifty years.