By Toga Tahir
More than 115 projects were submitted to the AUE Student Research Competition that took place on the 11th of April, showcasing the versatile and authentic efforts of many academically accomplished students.
The 4th Annual Aue Student Research Competition was held over two days on the 11th and 12th of April and is established to encourage undergraduate and graduate students to compete with their conducted projects honestly and interactively, all of which to achieve a collective community of advocating for building accomplished futures of students. The competition holds the message of promoting scientific research to students while aiming at fostering life-long learnings such as future employability skills, entrepreneurial mindsets, and attitudes pertinent to education, innovation, and research. Whereas the theme of the competition was “Transitioning into a Future Generation”, which is in alignment with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid’s announcement on launching the UAE Centennial 2071 project “to prepare the nation for future generations”.
As the competition was held virtually on Zoom to ensure the safety of the competitors along with the faculty and committee, the course of the competition excelled in its assembly and organization. In addition, this year’s AUESRC was open to graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in universities in the UAE and GCC, making the competition have a regional reach, where the deadline of submissions was set on the 23rd of March, having a variety of eligible projects for submitting, from theses and dissertations to capstone projects and fellowship projects, and many other. Later on, the projects were evaluated along with the allocation of monetary prizes for the top three winners.
One of our students from CMMC was one of the competitors, Toka Mohammed, a 22-year-old Egyptian student with a major in Radio and Tv. Toka presented her project, GOFIT Advertisement/ APP Market Research that was about color theory and how it is used in advertisements to influence audience preferences and choices. “ I didn’t know that a student in a field of Media and Mass Communication and especially Radio and Tv can be involved in like a research competition in general,” says Toka as we discuss her experience in competing, where she later shares that AUESRC is the first academic competition she had participated in. Toka was initially introduced to the competition through Dr. Walaa Fouda, Assistant Professor, College of Media and Mass Communication where she previously taught her many courses, and coincidentally her project was conducted for one of those classes. As she shares her gratitude towards Dr. Walaa putting forward her project in the competition, Toka says “I actually thought that it’s either I am going to stand out or to be left out” where she explains the misconception she had of research competitions being mainly focused on business and science issues. However, later she realized the broad scope of research and its implementation in various fields, all of which resulted from her participation in AUESRC that made her gain a one-of-a-kind experience filled with support, inspiration, and encouragement from faculty members, even though she did not get any awards, she adds “ the support, the organizers, and the whole experience was an award to me”.
“One of our future aspirations of the competition is for it to reach an international level of participation,” says Professor Marwan Al-Akaidi, Vice President for Research, and Chair of the AUESRC. As it shows, the competition has reached outstanding levels of achievements, its next goal is to go to the international level, where initially it first started with only AUE students then opened up to all UAE universities, and currently, it is taking in submissions form UAE and GCC students. As the competition embodies its aims and goals, all students from different stages of academic studies should hurry and join the upcoming AUESRC because of the many advantages and benefits gained from participating. “It is an achievement for a student to participate in a competition and get shortlisted for presenting because it is a contribution to the community of the UAE,” says Prof Al- Akaidi as he highlights the students’ gains from participating. Thus, students from all across the region, prepare your projects for the upcoming 5th annual AUESRC so you don’t miss the opportunity of sharing your hard work as well as gaining an unforgettable experience with an academically focused community where you might also leave with a prize of 5,000 AED.
