DOHA: The recently concluded Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development UK Lecture Series has revealed some of the unique research under way in QF’s world-class universities.
With 2013 marking a year-long Qatar UK initiative to celebrate existing Qatari-British partnerships and develop new ones, QF contributed to this campaign by inviting a select group of Qatar’s senior academics to deliver engaging discourses at British universities, comprising a two-month-long lecture series.
Dr Thilo Rehren, Director of University College London Qatar, delivered the first seminar of the series entitled, ‘Glass in Ancient Egypt — Splendour for the Pharaoh,’ at Durham University last month.
Journeying through archaeological, iconographic and textual evidence from 500 years of ancient Egyptian history to uncover the importance of glass during this era, Dr Thilo highlighted the crucial role of glass as a substitute for precious stones in jewellery, architectural decoration, and diplomatic relations. He also drew parallels with the political importance placed on valuable commodities, such as oil and gas, in the modern-day era. “The idea was for us to present our research in the UK, showing that we [academics in Qatar] are active and delivering compelling and insightful research,” he said.
Dr Amira Sonbol, Professor of History at Georgetown University — School of Foreign Service in Qatar, delivered the second lecture entitled, ‘The Modern Arab Woman,’ at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She unravelled constructed narratives of the modern Arab women to uncover the importance of overlooked specificities, disjunctures and variations of women in the Arab world. She delved into experiences and struggles of Arab women and re-examined the existing legal sources to address women’s history by questioning the conceptual basis of the diffusion of laws pertaining to women.
Dr Patrick Philippe Meier, Director of Social Innovation at Qatar Computing Research Institute, delivered the final lecture entitled, ‘The Future of Next Generation Humanitarian Technology,’ at Imperial College London earlier this month.
The world’s foremost leader in humanitarian technology, Dr Meier shared his future visions of crowdsourcing, multitasking and data science, among other things, to discuss how emerging technologies in these areas are reshaping responses to crises, such as floods, typhoons and earthquakes. “Disaster-affected communities today have become increasingly digital and are thus primary sources of real-time information following a crisis.
“Technology plays a key role in harnessing this ‘big data’ for humanitarian purposes as part of the larger ecosystem of crisis information, providing responders with the most updated information, as well as augmenting response capabilities.
“I work with my colleagues at QCRI to leverage advanced computing through our expertise in big data analytics, machine learning, social computing and natural language processing to promote innovation and change for improving humanitarian crisis response,” he said. He explained QCRI’s humanitarian technology platforms and applications, employed by relief organisations responding to the earthquake in Pakistan, the tornado in Oklahoma and the recent Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
The Peninsula
