DECEMBER 06
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ANDREW CARNEGIE:
A GREAT INNOVATOR
In this issue
Connections:
Students take on summer
internships
Sheikha Mozah:
H.H. speaks at Pittsburgh
Commencement
contents
AUGUST 06
Akhbar
A publication of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar
P.O. Box 24866
Doha, Qatar
www.qatar.cmu.edu
Contributors
Noha AlAfifi
Emma Bopf
Lisa Kirchner
Andrea L. Zrimsek
Layout & Design
Orabi Zeidan
Doha, Qatar
Mission
Published four times per year, Akhbar is the
Carnegie Mellon Qatar newsletter. Articles and
photographs contained in this publication are
subject to copyright protection. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in any
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means without prior written permission of the
university.
Editorial inquires or reprints
For reprints or inquiries, contact Lisa Kirchner,
Director of Marketing and Public Relations, at
kirchner@qatar.cmu.edu.
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A WORD
FROM THE
DEAN....
Connections
Royal Visit
Down & Dirty
Botball
Faculty & Staff News
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5
10
11
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Visiting Professors
Remembering
A Friend
No Place Like Home
Q-CERT
Part of the mission of Carnegie Mellon University
in Qatar is to have our students take what they learn in
the classroom and apply it to the community. After all,
many of them will live and work in Doha. And they have
the knowledge, skills and drive to make a great impact
on the world around them.
We are watching them transform from students
into citizens and from followers into leaders. This year has
seen the launch of many new clubs, service projects and
ways for students to get involved. Students are raising
money for charity, working at internships across the area,
and forging relationships with business and community
leaders. They see an opportunity and immediately find a
way they can lend a hand. And let’s not forget this is all
happening while taking a full class load.
Many of our students are already talking about
the businesses and partnerships they want to start after
they graduate. The Qatar National Research Fund is
getting ready for its first round of funding for studentbased research projects. And the Qatar Science &
Technology Park is poised to offer funding and support
to budding entrepreneurs and researchers. Mixing
this support, with the drive and talent of our students,
means that Doha will be the place to look for ideas and
innovations that change the world.
With our semester wrapping up earlier than
usual, several students have signed up to volunteer
for the Doha Asian Games in December. It speaks very
highly of our students that they are willing to give up
much of their semester break to devote their time to
making their city shine. The world’s eyes will be on Doha
for those two weeks in December and our students
will no doubt share the collaborative spirit of Carnegie
Mellon with everyone they encounter.
As Dean of this campus- of this unique
experiment in education- I continue to be impressed
each day with our students’ ambition and determination
to get involved and make a difference. Andrew Carnegie
would be proud.
My best wishes to you all,
Charles E. Thorpe, Dean
LEARNING CURVE
ACADEMIC RESOURCE CENTER EXPANDS ITS SERVICES
Programming tutor Mohamed Abu Zeinab helps students
As the student body of Carnegie Mellon University
in Qatar continues to grow and change, so do the services
offered by the university. After two full academic years,
the Intercultural Communication Center- now dubbed the
Academic Resource Center - has developed a clearer
understanding of the academic skills and needs of CMU-Q
students. “We started to see there was a need for support in
several subjects,” says Kathy Reardon-Anderson, Academic
Resource Center director.
2 akhbar AUGUST 2006
When the center opened in 2004 as the Writing
Center, it was designed to help students improve their
academic writing. As Reardon-Anderson puts it “to make
sure that students are saying what they think they’re saying.”
At the end of the first year in Qatar, the writing center saw
a greater need so it changed its name to the Intercultural
Communication Center and began offering more services.
The mission of the erstwhile Intercultural
Communication Center was to help students develop a wider
range of communication skills needed to succeed in their
academic programs. The center provides services to students
who are nonnative or bilingual speakers of English or who
were educated outside of the U.S. educational system.
During this past academic year, under the guidance
and support provided by Peggy Heidish and the staff of the
Intercultural Communication Center in Pittsburgh, the ARC
has developed greater expertise in responding to students
with second language communication issues and realized it
once again needed to expand.
“As we continue to define services appropriate
for the CMU-Q student body and as the composition of the
student body evolves, the need for a comprehensive support
program has become evident,” say Reardon-Anderson.
To reflect its broader mission, the ARC is providing
a wide spectrum of support services that includes not only
writing and language assistance, but also basic academic
skills and math support. ARC staff, which in addition to
Reardon-Anderson includes Marjorie Carlson, coordinator
of writing support services, and Mohamed Mustafa, math
development specialist, is working closely with student affairs
and academic advising to coordinate effective support for
CMU-Q students.
“Our new math tutor Mohamed Mustafa is a
smashing success,” Reardon-Anderson says. “He mainly
tutors students who are taking professor Marion Oliver’s
calculus class, and since mid-term, Professor Oliver gives
students points if they see Mohamed for extra work.”
Peer tutoring has also been added to the list of
available services this year. Five students have signed up for
the program. Sahrr Malik and Hicham Nedjari are working
as writing tutors and Fatema Farghali, Qebbas Al Wared and
Mohamed Abu Zeinab are working as programming tutors. All three programming tutors assist professor Nina Cooper in
class and tutor students outside of classroom. Zeinab went so
far as to organize a review session the evening before a big
test, which was very much appreciated by students.
Reardon-Anderson says it has become clear that
students want peer tutors available on the weekends. “Large
groups come in on Saturday to study together and with peer
tutors, particularly the programming tutors,” she says.
The ARC also has started a tutor training program.
Reardon-Anderson ordered video tapes produced at North
Carolina State that demonstrate best tutoring practices. Staff
and peer tutors have already started watching and critiquing
them in hopes of further improving upon their services.
In addition to the demand for math and programming
assistance, the demand for writing assistance is up slightly
from last year, Reardon-Anderson says. “That remains pretty
much a constant when we are offering writing-intensive
courses.” While the ARC staff members joke that ARC stands
for annually renamed center, they know change is necessary
as the center continues to evolve.
The Academic Resource Center is located in Room
A159 of the Weill-Cornell Medical Building. All services are
free to Carnegie Mellon students.
AUGUST 2006
akhbar 3
TOMORROW’S
LIBRARY
Digital Book Scanning Coming To Doha
Sophisticated digital scanners capture even the smallest detail
It wasn’t too long ago that the thought of having
instant and free access to millions of books was just a dream.
However the Million Book Project, a joint project of Carnegie
Mellon University School of Computer Science and University
Libraries, is changing that.
The goal of the MBP is to digitally scan one million
books by 2007. Books will be scanned in many languages
and all books will have free-to-read access. To date more
than 600,000 books have already been scanned, says
Gabrielle Michalek, head of the digital libraries initiative.
Scanning centers are up and running in India, China,
Egypt and Hawaii, and a center is set to open in Doha in
coming months. The Doha center is being developed so that
the more than 120,000 items in Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim AlThani private collection may be scanned and made available
to the world. “His collection has some of the rarest items on
the planet,” Michalek says. “As soon as I saw it, I immediately
knew it had to go online. It’s magnificent.”
4 akhbar
AUGUST 2006
The collection, which is now in the hands of Qatar
Foundation, is made up of approximately 10,000 rare
documents, maps, newspapers and manuscripts, and more
than 100,000 non-rare items. Some are written in Arabic
while others are in English, French, Hebrew, German or Farsi.
“Scanning these items is a way of sharing them with the
public and at the same time showing off the beauty of the
culture of the Persian Gulf.”
Michalek first saw the collection on a visit to Doha
last year while in town to discuss the MBP. She returned to
Pittsburgh and immediately put a plan into motion to get
these items digitally scanned. Before long, steps were being
taken to share these documents with the rest of the world.
The longtime Carnegie Mellon librarian and digital libraries
expert has agreed to move to Doha to oversee a pilot program
called the Qatar Heritage Rare Book Project in which 300 rare
items and 5,000 non-rare items will be scanned in.
High-end scanners will be purchased that will allow
the documents to be carefully scanned so that no detail
is missed. Michalek says scanning operators will have to
be specially trained to handle the rare materials to avoid
damaging them during the scanning process. She estimates
rare books can be scanned at a rate of approximately 600700 pages in eight hours. Non-rare books require less special
handing and thus can have upwards of 2,000 pages scanned
in an eight hour shift.
Once the books are scanned they will be catalogued
and made fully searchable and readable online. Each and
every page of the books and other items will be scanned
in –even the blank pages – so that the online reader sees
exactly what he would if the actual book were in his hands.
In addition to sharing these valuable and interesting
works with the world, Michalek says the scanning of these
items may have an additional benefit. “Some of the books
have the exact same passages written side by side in several
languages,” she says. “These unique works could serve as
something of a Rosetta Stone to researchers at the LTI.”
The LTI, or the Language Technologies Institute
of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon
University, conducts research and provides graduate
education in all aspects of language technology and
information management including language translation.
The Qatar Heritage Rare Book Project is expected
to begin scanning books and other rare items in January. To
view a sample of a digital library, visit the Posner Memorial
Collection at http://posner.library.cmu.edu/Posner/.
ROAD
TO THE
FUTURE
Teaching assistant Justin
Carlson working on developing
mapping software
Justin Carlson hits the streets
To say that driving around Doha is challenging is
something of an understatement, especially in this age of
construction, growth and development. New technology such
as Global Positioning Software can help, but as all GPS users
know, the software is only accurate to within several feet. And
if we’re ever going to have cars that drive themselves that
just won’t be good enough.
But Justin Carlson, robotics Ph.D. candidate and
teaching assistant in Qatar, is working on a project that may
change that. “GPS technology is not accurate enough. It’s part
of the solution but it’s not the entire solution,” says Carlson.
“My stated goal is to localize GPS technology within a few
centimeters. That’s what we need to enable autonomous driving.”
Each week Carlson spends a few hours tooling around
Doha capturing different areas at different times of day. He has
fitted his Subaru Forester with a GPS, laser scanners, a laptop
and sensors that capture a diverse set of data along with the
exact time things are happening. “In a nutshell we are saving
what the car sees to play back later,” Carlson says.
He conceptualized the project earlier this year and
is planning on using it as the basis of his doctoral thesis. He
says it’s similar to a public bus project in Pittsburgh that ran
but routes and monitored passenger trips. That project was
targeting pedestrian safety with the idea that a system could
be developed to alert bus drivers if there were pedestrians in
close proximity. Add to that figuring out stop lights, stop signs
and other obstacles to a robotic car and you get an idea of
what Carlson is trying to accomplish.
He is quick to point out that he is not inventing
the autonomous car, rather he is hoping to develop highlydetailed mapping software that may contribute to the field of
autonomous driving. Much research still needs to be done
in this field, he says. NAVLAB had a car that drove itself
98 percent of the time from Los Angeles and Washington
D.C. However, says Carlson, highway driving is easier for
autonomous robots than city driving. That’s because there
are fewer variables, pedestrians and unexpected changes on
highways than in cities.
“Justin’s work is building very high accuracy maps
of very large areas. In a city like Doha, with construction
happening all over the place and all the time, this gives us a
way to keep maps up to date, to monitor the progress of all
the new developments. Justin’s work is a great example of
research which is both very good theoretically, and very useful
practically, at the same time,” says Chuck Thorpe, dean of
Carnegie Mellon Qatar and robotics advisor to Carlson.
AUGUST 2006
akhbar 5
THE CARNEGIE PLAN
The foundation of the Carnegie Mellon curriculum
Carnegie Mellon University founder Andrew Carnegie
Carnegie Mellon University may still be considered
new in Doha, but its academic programs are steeped in
tradition. Since being founded as Carnegie Technical Institute
in 1900 by Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie, the university has been at the forefront of
academic advancement.
It was the school’s second president, Robert
Doherty, who arguably made the biggest impact on the
way in which education was delivered. During Doherty’s
administration in the 1930s, Carnegie Tech was like other
schools in that education was taught in separate streams:
engineers took only engineering classes and liberal arts
students took only liberal arts classes.
Doherty looked at this model and came up with a new
and innovative way of thinking. He thought it would be in the best
interest of the students to combine the streams and proposed a
requirement that ¼ of all classes in a four year degree be taken
in the humanities. He called it The Carnegie Plan.
“He felt engineers and business people would be
future leaders of the United States and that they needed
citizenship training,” says John Robertson, assistant dean for
academic affairs, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. “He felt
liberal arts were a necessary component of problem solving
and that the perspective of a liberal arts education helped
students in technical courses.”
Though The Carnegie Plan received much flak at first,
it eventually became the standard model for the university.
6 akhbar AUGUST 2006
Soon business and engineering programs around the
country followed suit and began requiring a liberal arts core
curriculum. By adding the liberal arts dynamic, Doherty made it
okay for liberal arts schools to add business programs to their
curriculum. Something Robertson says many of those schools
eschewed because they felt business was too pedestrian.
The University of Chicago and Harvard University are two Ivy
League schools that still do not offer undergraduate business
programs, however they do offer MBAs.
The Carnegie Plan also served as a foundation for
the quantitative-based curriculum that has put the Tepper
School of Business on the map. It was in 1949 that William
Larimer Mellon, head of Gulf Oil, gave the $6 million “Mellon
Grant” to the university to apply the Carnegie Plan to study
business as a science.
Until this time, Robertson says, business was taught
as an art. Students studied cases in the classroom and
approached business with the ideal that you can never know
exactly how the market will move. Mellon thought differently.
The post-WWII economy showed him just how much scientific
principles can be applied to business. He operated under
the assumption that people make rational decisions and that
patterns always emerge.
“He felt business was a science, not an art, and
that if you have enough scientific technology in your tool kit
you can determine exactly what you need to do and why,”
says Robertson. During this time in America all things were
measured in mathematic terms so it wasn’t too difficult to
examine demographics, data, modeling and statistical analysis.
Based on Mellon’s idea, Carnegie Mellon hired
top experts in mathematics and business and the business
administration curriculum was modified to reflect the mathbased approach that is still taught today. Mellon’s idea is
credited as being the catalyst that quickly and drastically altered
the concept of management education in the United States. The
University of Virginia started a similar program around the same
time as Carnegie Mellon, but later abandoned it.
Many top U.S. business schools such as University
of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of
Management have adapted the rigorous quant-based
program, but most business schools have stuck with what
Robertson calls the old way of thinking: that business is
an art. “It’s a difficult curriculum, it’s highly select and not
everyone can do it,” Robertson says. But then again, not every
business school can claim seven Nobel Prize winners.
ENTREPRENEURS
WANTED
QSTP announces funding opportunities
As the universities at Education City gear up to
do research in Qatar, Qatar Science & Technology Park
is forging tools that will help transform the fruits of that
research into commercial success. QSTP’s “Proof of Concept
Fund” was launched in September, providing grants for
university researchers to explore the market potential of their
discoveries.
Early-stage funding for nascent technologies is
often a missing rung on the innovation ladder. This is the
critical point when a technology has moved beyond the realm
of research grants, but is not yet mature enough to attract
venture capitalists. Qatar Foundation has taken the initiative
and established the Proof of Concept Fund, smoothing the
path between university labs and angel funding.
As its name suggests, Proof of Concept Fund is
designed to prove the technical viability and market potential
of innovations. It provides grants to institutes and smallto-medium companies in Qatar to build prototypes, identify
routes to market and prepare a business plan. It has been
budgeted with $12 million over its first five years, and if the
pilot proves successful it may be scaled up.
“When you look at the major research programs
being planned by the universities at Education City, and the
fact that QSTP is building a world-class business incubator
across the road, they obviously fit very neatly together,”
says Paul Field, QSTP technology transfer manager. “Proof
of Concept Fund will boost the rate at which start-up tech.
companies are created in Qatar.”
Field has been jump-starting the program by visiting
the technology transfer offices of Carnegie Mellon and
other universities to see if there is any existing intellectual
property that could be commercialized in Qatar. QSTP is
not only interested in intellectual property, but also budding
entrepreneurs.
If the Proof of Concept Fund shows an innovation
has legs, there is a possibility for the faculty and students
who developed it to become managers of the new company.
That’s where the next stage of QSTP’s funds will come in.
“We’re currently working on setting up a seed fund
and a venture capital fund in Qatar,” Field says. “These
are designed to finally move the technologies into the
marketplace by providing capital to growing businesses. The
long term vision is for these new companies to form the base
of a knowledge economy in Qatar.”
To see how important early-stage grants can be,
consider Google. What began in1996 as a research project
between two Ph.D. students at Stanford University is a
company now valued at $117 billion. And its first $100,000
of funding came after it had a working concept but before it
existed as a company.
AUGUST 2006
akhbar 7
AROUND
THE
WORLD
Carnegie Mellon continues expanding its global reach
FORGING
A
FUTURE
Entrepreneurship center set to open in January
Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and
Qatar Foundation have come to an agreement for an
entrepreneurship center in which Carnegie Mellon will
offer an executive education program to local students and
business professionals who have an interest in the field of
technology.
The basic concept is to offer six mini-courses over
an 18 month period in which students are in the classroom
for one week then on their own for the remainder of the
weeks. Mohamed Dobashi, CEO of Carnegie Mellon Qatar,
says the goal would be for those in the program to develop a
plan that could “feed into a Qatar Science & Technology Park
venture.”
The program will be under the auspices of the
The Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship, which is
nationally recognized as one of the top entrepreneurship
centers in the country. The center has been offering
exceptional graduate, undergraduate and entrepreneurial
education programs since its inception in 1990 as part of the
Tepper School of Business.
Throughout the world, and at an unprecedented
pace, entrepreneurs are inventing a brighter future for
virtually every person on our planet. The pace of technological
8 akhbar AUGUST 2006
and economic change is accelerating, and entrepreneurs are
leading that change.
With funding from QSTP and guidance by
the The Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship,
undergraduate students at Carnegie Mellon Qatar and nontraditional students in Doha can become a vital part of this
entrepreneurial revolution.
Jeff Reid, former director of the center for
entrepreneurial studies at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, has been tapped to lead the program.
Reid is a proven strategic leader in the
entrepreneurship, venture capital, education, technology
and economic development arenas. He grew an educational
organization entrepreneurially from its inception to a number
one national ranking and was chosen by his peers as one of
the top five entrepreneurship center directors in the United
States.
Art Boni, director of the Donald H. Jones Center
for Entrepreneurship and John R. Thorne Professor of
Entrepreneurship, along with Tom Emerson, David T. and
Lindsay J. Morgenthaler Professor of Entrepreneurship, will
also be involved in teaching the curriculum. Classes are
slated to begin in January.
Originally founded in 1900 as a technical school for
the children of Pittsburgh’s working-class, Carnegie Mellon
University has evolved into a world leader in education. Part
of that transformation includes bringing our educational
programs to various locations around the world instead of
waiting for the world to come to us.
We all know that Carnegie Mellon Qatar is the first
international undergraduate branch campus, but it was not
the first branch campus opened by Carnegie Mellon. Located
in the heart of Silicon Valley, Carnegie Mellon West has
been offering masters degrees in software engineering and
software management since 1999.
At that time, the university aspired toward research
partnerships with NASA and other Silicon Valley companies.
They sought to establish educational programs, offer special
internships and work opportunities to students on the
Pittsburgh campus, and develop closer ties with the nearly
3,000 alumni who live and work in the valley.
In May 2006, H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy
and Management began offering two master’s degrees – a
master of science in public policy and management and a
master of science in information technology – as well as
executive education programs in Adelaide, Australia. As the
capital of South Australia, Adelaide can provide opportunities
for students to conduct internships or project courses within
the state government.
In association with Athens Information Technology
in Athens, Greece, the Information Networking Institute at
Carnegie Mellon offers a master of science in information
networking, which is now a paragon for international
education between Carnegie Mellon and the world. AIT and
the INI have each invested significant resources to create the
Athens MSIN program, which combines local and distance
education to train students in cutting edge technologies.
The INI also offers a master of science in information
technology – information security (MSIT-IS) in conjunction
with the Hyogo Institute of Information Education Foundation
in Kobe, Japan. The degree is a joint initiative of the INI and
the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management.
Further expanding its reach, Carnegie Mellon has
agreed to use its expertise in information technology systems
and business to help the Singapore Management University
develop its recently established School of Information
Systems with initial emphasis on an undergraduate business
program.
The four-year agreement between the university
and SMU calls for Carnegie Mellon to share its best practices
and provide counsel to SIS>s undergraduate program,
its master>s and executive education programs and the
establishment of a research center.
Carnegie Mellon will work alongside SIS to develop
the undergraduate program curriculum, faculty resources,
and organizational and technological infrastructure. Carnegie
Mellon will similarly share its expertise with regards to the
planning, design and launch of the research center and the
master>s program.
With formal educational partnerships in Taiwan,
India, Brazil and Mexico, as well as distance-learning
programs in New York City, Arlington, W.V, the United
Kingdom, the Netherlands and many other countries,
Carnegie Mellon’s reach is broad. And it is only beginning.
AUGUST 2006
akhbar 9
CATCHING UP WITH
Imran Karim (Tepper, 2008)
“What’s Qatar like?”
That’s the question Imran Karim (Tepper, 2008) says he
has been asked most since arriving in August on Carnegie Mellon’s
home campus in Pittsburgh. “Many of the people who have asked that
question have signed up for classes in Qatar by mistake. So when they
find out I’m from the Qatar campus they always ask about it,” he says.
He says some people are surprised by his answer that Qatar
is a small country that is safe, peaceful and only has about 800,000
residents. Once he tells them those few facts, he says they typically
want to learn more. And he is always willing to share.
Karim is spending the entire 2006-2007 academic year
studying in Pittsburgh. He is doing this so he can take more finance
classes than are offered in Qatar. He says his interest in finance was
sparked when he did an internship in finance at HSBC Bank. “I did well
at the internship and found finance to be an interesting field,” he says.
Karim is taking a full academic load that is centered on
finance. Classes are challenging and interesting, and he is as sleep
deprived as any other student. He says the biggest difference between
the Qatar campus and the Pittsburgh campus is size. “This is a more
typical college campus,” he says. “There are thousands of students
and always a lot going on.”
Having such a large number of students around, Karim says
it has been easy to meet new people. Living in a campus dormitory has
surrounded him with an immediate circle of friends. However, living in a
dorm room that he estimates is less than half the size of his bedroom in
Doha has been a big change. Fortunately him roommate never showed
up, so he has the entire room to himself.
Since this is not Karim’s first trip to Pittsburgh - or the
United States for that matter - he came into the experience pretty well
prepared. The junior business administration major was born in the
Midwestern state of Indiana and lived for a few years in the eastern
shore state of New Jersey. He then spent several years living in Kuwait
before arriving to Doha with his two sisters, mother and father, who
works for the U.S. Army.
He spent six weeks in the summer of 2005 in Pittsburgh
taking courses in MIT and psychology. As it was summer, he says the
campus was not as alive as it is during the regular academic year. It
wasn’t as cold either.
So far this term, he has joined a few business clubs and
participated in an Equities Cup event where he competed in an
investment game against students from other universities. He is even
looking into getting a summer internship.
“This has been a good move for me. I’m learning a lot and
I’m enjoying it,” he says. Once the fall semester ends, Karim plans to
visit family in sunny Florida, then head back to Qatar for a few weeks
before gearing up for what is sure to be a long, cold Pittsburgh winter.
10 akhbar AUGUST 2006
SUMMER
SCHOOL
Students have option of taking
classes in Pittsburgh
Summer is a time reserved for rest, relaxation and
enjoying the long, sunny days. Unless, of course, if you>re
a Carnegie Mellon student. Then summer simply means a
chance to study with fewer distractions.
Students at the Pittsburgh campus often take
summer classes to catch up, get ahead or just earn a
few extra credits in electives not offered during the fall or
spring terms. Being so much smaller than Pittsburgh, the
Qatar campus does not offer summer courses. So this past
summer, a handful of students packed their bags and headed
west to attend summer school in Pittsburgh.
John Robertson, assistant dean for academic affairs,
says he encourages students to take summer classes in
Pittsburgh for two reasons. First of all, students can sign up
for a broad range of classes to round out their academic
career. «It>s a great way to earn a minor in a field that has
yet to be offered in Education City,» Robertson says.
The second reason is to broaden horizons. By
traveling to Pittsburgh, students are fully immersed in another
culture, specifically the Carnegie Mellon culture. In addition
to meeting other Carnegie Mellon students, students may
get involved in activities on the home campus and take in
everything the City of Pittsburgh has to offer.
Summer courses also give students the chance to
improve their GPA by re-taking a class. Other students take
a full load of classes during the summer in hopes of an early
graduation. No matter what the reason, the opportunity is one
that Robertson says should not be passed up. «We>ll try to
do it for as many students as we can.»
Studying abroad is not available to students until
they are in their second full academic year. Students who
elect to take summer classes in Pittsburgh typically live in one
of the campus dormitories or apartments, and eat meals in
the cafeteria. Qatar Foundation pays for transportation, room,
board and assists students with other aspects of the trip. But
LOOKING
AHEAD
Principal researcher Lynn Carter
studying Doha marketplace
Straight from the West Coast Campus in Silicon
Valley, California, Lynn Robert Carter has arrived in
Doha to study what future computer science needs
will be in the community and determine how Carnegie
Mellon University in Qatar can best prepare students to
serve them.
“There are many ways a CS grad can be useful
to a firm,” he says. “We need to identify the market
needs and how a CS grad can fill them.”
Part of Carter’s role is to determine who
potential employers are and identify their problems and
staffing needs. Then he hopes to take that knowledge
along with what business leaders envision as solutions,
and apply it to the curriculum in Doha.
Carter did similar work in his many years at the
Silicon Valley campus. “They’re doing remarkable stuff
there and Carnegie Mellon needed to understand it. So we
put a campus in the middle of it to learn from them. That
way our programs could be tailored to suit their needs.”
While in Doha Carter is also going to study the
possibility of creating a focus on software engineering
in the computer science program. “CS is incredibly
broad-students are qualified for a lot of jobs. But the
skills needed to create software are different from the
skills needed to run it.”
Though the bulk of the education is the same
for all concentrations in the computer science program,
electives become the place where students can hone
their skills and focus on what they are interested in and
what is appropriate for them.
Software engineering is about creating, Carter
says. Software engineers create and write computer
codes that solve needs. Other aspects of CS deal more
with running the programs and solving problems. “We
need to find out what students in Doha want to do, and
what they market needs them to do,” he says. “Then
find a way to make it happen.”
getting the work done…that>s left up to the student.
AUGUST 2006
akhbar 11
FACULTY NEWS
PURL
DIVING
CMUQ women learn to knit
Students in Qatar made an unusual move during the
last few weeks of the Spring 2006 semester by casting off
their books and casting on a few stitches in the newly-formed
knitting circle.
The idea for the knitting group came about when
students began spotting teaching assistant Jessica Mink
clicking away with her needles between classes. A longtime
knitter, Mink joined up with Andy Zrimsek, marketing and
public relations writer and avid knitter, and the two offered to
teach the craft to anyone who wanted to learn.
Seeing there are no yarn shops in Doha and the
knitting craze that has been sweeping Europe and the U.S. for
the past few years has yet to hit the Gulf region, turnout was
expected to be low. Much to everyone’s surprise, some 15
students and several university employees expressed interest
in joining the class.
UP FOR
DEBATE
Doha Debates opening new
channels of communication
At a time when many nations are experiencing
oppression, the Doha Debates are bringing a unique form
of free speech and dialogue to Qatar. Each month, invited
speakers debate the burning issues of the Arab and Islamic
world in front of an audience who is encouraged to participate
by asking questions.
Past topics have included: “This House believes that
Hezbollah had no right to fight a war on Lebanon’s behalf,”
”This House believes that Arab women should have full
equality with men” and «This House believes in the separation
of mosque and state.”
12 akhbar AUGUST 2006
Since temperatures in Qatar don’t exactly lend
themselves to wool sweaters and chunky hats, the group
set out on a mission to make fun scarves out of a yarn that
looked and felt like suede. Once the giant box of fiber arrived
from New York, the group began meeting once or twice each
week in the yellow lounge.
Slowly the colorful balls of yarn that were bouncing
all around on the floor were transformed into fun scarves.
Some of the new fashion accessories were wide, others were
narrow and some would not exactly earn an A if the class
were graded. But everyone had fun, and who knows, maybe
this is the first step in turning Doha into the knitting capitol of
the Middle East.
The Qatar Knitters will resume in January with the
start of the Spring 2007 term. So grab your needles and get
ready.
The Debates are chaired by the internationally
renowned broadcaster Tim Sebastian, formerly of the BBC>s
HARDTalk program. Debates are hosted and funded by
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community
Development, which is headed by Her Highness, Sheikha
Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, wife of the Emir of Qatar and
spearhead of Education City.
The audience is made up of people living in or
visiting Qatar. University and senior high school students,
from a wide range of different countries in the Arab world and
beyond, comprise half of the audience and several Carnegie
Mellon students, staff and faculty have taken part.
The Doha Debates, which has begun its third season,
are broadcast around the globe on BBC World. At the end of
November, the Debates will be hosted at Harvard University.
The motion to be debated at Harvard will be: “This House
believes the US administration>s war on terror has made the
world a more dangerous place.” It is hoped to be the first of
many Debates held at key international forums.
For more information, visit
www.thedohadebates.com.
“The United States will soon surpass the half-million
mark for drug prisoners, which is more than 10 times as
many as in 1980. It is an extraordinary number, more than
Western Europe locks up for all criminal offenses combined
and more than the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans.
How effective is this level of imprisonment in controlling drug
problems? Could we get by with, say, just a quarter million
locked up for drug violations?”
This is the topic raised in the paper “Reorienting
U.S. Drug Policy,” which was co-authored by Jon Caulkins,
professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie
Mellon University in Qatar & the Heinz School of Public Policy
and Management.
Addressing the issues of illegal drug problems in
the U.S, the paper was published in Issues in Science and
Technology, an outlet sponsored by the National Academy
of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the
Institute of Medicine.
Issues in Science & Technology is a forum for
discussion of public policy related to science, engineering
and medicine. This includes policy for science and science for
policy, with emphasis on the latter.
Although Issues is published by the scientific and
technical communities, it is not just a platform for these
communities to present their views to Congress and the
public. Rather, it is a place where researchers, government
officials, business leaders and others with a stake in public
policy can share ideas and offer specific suggestions.
To read the article in its entirety, visit www.issues.
org/23.1/caulkins.html.
CARNEGIE MELLON STUDENT DELIVERS
SPEECH AT QATAR FOUNDATION ORIENTATION
Nora Al-Subai (CS, 2008) delivered a speech at Qatar Foundations’ orientation for all
students of Education City at the beginning of the Fall 2006 term. Since all five of the Education
City universities started at the same time this year, QF held one large welcome back program.
Nora, who is student government president at Carnegie Mellon Qatar, used William A
Ward’s Recipe for Success as a basis for her speech on the importance of inspiration, success
and education for students in Qatar. She was the only student from Education City who was
asked to speak at the event.
GAME TIME
Doha preparing for the 15th Asian Games
The entire city of Doha has feverishly been preparing
for the influx of athletes and fans expected for the Doha
Asian Games taking place from Dec. 1 – 15. New buildings
are sprouting up on every corner, the image of the games’
mascot “Orry” the oryx is emblazoned on buildings all along
the Corniche and the countdown to the torch lighting is on.
Featuring 50 different countries competing in an
array of sports that include everything from basketball and
chess to sailing and water polo, the 15th Asian Games is
expected to attract more than one million people.
In anticipation of the congestion of the games,
Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar began its Fall 2006
semester in early August so that it would finish by the
end of November. With finals ending a few days before
the games, several students have signed up to work
as DAGOC volunteers. The work will give students the
opportunity to be part of an amazing event, and will show
the entire world what students at Carnegie Mellon Qatar
have to offer.
For more information on the Doha Asian Games, visit
www.doha-2006.com
AUGUST 2006
akhbar 13