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QU Ranked among Top 100 Universities Worldwide in Computer Science (THE 2023)
Qatar University has been ranked among the top 100 universities worldwide in Computer Science, according to Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking of 2023 that was just released. This is indeed a big achievement for our department. It is surely a result of years of active and hard work in planning, teaching, and research. Congratulations to all members!
QU’s rank has jumped this year over about 25 positions in THE CS subject ranking. With a steady progress over years, here are the CS ranks of QU since 2018:
- 2018: 251-300
- 2019: 201-250
- 2020: 201-250
- 2021: 101-125
- 2022: 101-125
- 2023: 95
CSE Team Wins Best UREP 2022 Presentation
A CSE team of undergraduate students, supervised by our faculty member Dr. Noora Fetais, won the Best Presentation award in the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP) competition, which was held on 18th of October 2022. The winning project is titled “Intelligent and Immersive Cultural Game using Virtual Reality” and the team consists of the students Yahia Boray, Hesham Zaky, and Omar Osman.
UREP is one of the main programs offered by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) and designed to fulfil its aims in developing research infrastructure in Qatar by establishing the basis of scientific research at the undergraduate level. UREP provides a great opportunity for undergraduate students to experience scientific research and to engage in the various processes to build skills essential for the professional development of the students.
The developed game aims to preserve and spread cultural practices. It introduces new gaming mechanics, allowing user interaction with virtual game objects using hand gestures. The user’s objective is to hunt prey in their natural habitat which means that the player will physically change his location to hunt a specific prey using his falcon to mimic how the falcon hunts for its’ prey in the real world. This interaction with the real world, along with the incorporation of realistic graphics and mixed reality features, enhances the user’s experience and helps in preserving cultural practices.
Previous work tried to achieve the same goal by different approaches that led to different user segments and different usability cases. One major limitation in that work was the accessibility due to the use of specialized hardware. The hardware is accessible to only a small segment of users, and due to the challenges forced by the COVID19 situation reusing the hardware is prohibited in conferences or exhibitions.
As a result, not many will have access to the developed solution. The new implementation was designed to work on both Android and IOS to have a social interaction between the largest possible numbers of players. Other features that could also contribute to the goal of the project include building a virtual museum and displaying real falcons using the capabilities mixed reality has to offer.
Congratulations to the winning team!
CSE Faculty Members and Students Awarded in QU Annual Research Forum 2022
Faculty members and students from CSE department have received awards in QU Annual Research Forum and Exhibition 2022. The event brought together students, researchers and academics from the University’s colleges, research centers and institutions, in addition to partners and stakeholders, to assess, review, and discuss QU’s research outcomes and activities.
A team from faculty members and post docs from College of Engineering including Dr. Osama Halabi was awarded the Best Poster in Information and Communications Technologies discipline for Faculty and Postdoc category. The project is titled “The Development of Emerging Virtual Reality (VR) System for Analyzing Pedestrian Safety Perception on Road Infrastructure”.
Our students Somaya Eltanbouly, Muraam Abdel-Ghani, and Hoda Helmy won the Best Poster Award in Information and Communications Technologies discipline for Undergraduate Students category. The project is titled “Assistive Telexistence System Using Motion Blending”, and supervised by Dr. Osama Halabi and Dr. Mohammed Al-Sada.
Our CSE graduate student Najmath Ottakath won the Best Poster in FIFA World Cup Related Research discipline for graduate students category with a project titled “Fan Rage Detection and Alert System in Football Stadiums Using Multi-surveillance System”. The project is supervised by Dr. Sumaya Al Maadeed.
Congratulation to all of our winners!
CSE Students Participate in Huawei’s “Seeds for the Future” Program
Under the endorsement of Qatar Communication Regulatory Authority and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Huawei Technologies organized its “Seeds for the Future” program over 8-day online training from 29 August to 5 September 2022. The program targeted Qatar elite university students to obtain valuable cutting-edge ICT knowledge developed by Huawei and promote creativity amongst students by acting as a bridge between the classroom and the industry enhancing students’ future opportunities. The program offered a rich experience involving technology courses including 5G, cloud computing, AI, IoT, leadership course, and participation in “Tech4Good” group project.
This year, 24 students from QU, HBKU, UDST, and CCQ have participated in the Huawei SFTF program. We are proud that QU-CSE students Sara Metwaly and Rufus John Kurian got awarded QU Best Performance and Daily Proactive Student awards respectively.
Big congratulations to our wining students and wishing them the bright future in their study and beyond!
CSE Faculty Receives QU 2021-2022 Outstanding Faculty Service Award
Dr. Noora Fetais
Our faculty member, Dr. Noora Fetais, was awarded the Qatar University Outstanding Faculty Service award for AY 2021-2022. The award is established to honor and recognize faculty members who have demonstrated excellence in service to QU and the community at large.
The faculty service is a cornerstone of faculty duties at QU and represents one of the pillars of QU strategic plan. The type and scope of university services is clearly defined in QU Mission and Key Performance areas, where the university has pledged to address relevant local and regional challenges, advance knowledge, and contribute actively to the needs and aspirations of society. Recognizing the importance of outstanding faculty services and its significance in meeting the University’s mission, the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs instituted Qatar University Outstanding Faculty Service Award. Congratulations Dr. Noora for the award!
CSE Faculty Awarded NPRP-C Grant from QNRF
A major cluster grant titled “The Future of Digital Citizenship in Qatar: A Socio-Technical Approach” from the Qatar National Research Fund (QRNF) was awarded to HBKU, Qatar University, and many other partners to lead a multi-entity, interdisciplinary project on digital citizenship in the Arab region.
The $3.8m four-year grant was awarded under QRNF’s National Priorities Research Program-Cluster (NPRP-C) and enables collaboration between 10 entities from academia and industry.
Dr. Raian Ali, Professor in Information and Computing Technology at HBKU, will lead the cluster as program director with six projects that will focus on building an observatory for trends and common topics on social media, web-based tools, educational materials, and research into digital literacy and well-being, gender equity, social inclusion, behavior-based approaches to security and safety, detecting and limiting propaganda and other areas.
Qatar University is leading two projects by Dr. Khaled Khan and Dr. Osama Halabi from the Computer Science and Engineering Department, College of Engineering.
The project led by Dr. Khaled Khan is titled ”Security and Safety as a Behavior”. It is a collaborative project between Qatar University, HBKU, and Bournemouth University. The project will research a behavior-based approach to security and safety. Investigate hacking and social engineering techniques that are successful in the Arab world and propose socio-technical approaches to enhance resilience to manipulators online and encourage reporting. The solutions are based on the approaches of behavior rehearsal, simulation, and social norms.
The project is led by Dr. Osama Halabi is titled “GESI by Design”. It is a collaborative project between Qatar University and HBKU. The project will study how to mitigate issues related to Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in social media in Qatar and the Arab world and increase awareness of them. The team will use digital nudging techniques based on annotation and a bespoke set of reactions and emojis and devise tools to facilitate a structured dialogue. The aim is to encourage a more civilized and inclusive language and interaction.
The cluster is supported by a wide range of key stakeholders in Qatar including the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Qatar National Library, Msheireb Museums, Qatar Finance Centre, and Fadaat Media, who will provide facilities and enrich the knowledge transfer.