Muhamed Nebuhan Shajahan, BSc in Computer Engineering student, was invited to be a part of the Mohamed Bin Zayed Majlis for Future Generations (MBZMFG) Virtual Future Lab program.
Titled ‘Beyond Ideas, To Next Steps,’ the two-day intense program took place from 25 – 26 September 2021. Muhamed joined one hundred other students from around the UAE to discuss the challenges and opportunities in developing the UAE’s sustainable future.
“It was a beneficial experience that helped me and my co-participants understand the importance of critically thinking about designing our future as well the communities’ future,” Muhamed shared.
The program was led by former Harvard professor Dr. Maurizio Travaglini, who encouraged the students to be future planners who, as Muhamed explained “open the immediate doors before the farthest ones and close the doors that stop us.”
“The program inspired me to think about the world, as a place of opportunities and the doors we can open to make a difference,” Muhamed said.
The event provided a safe space for students to collaborate and exchange ideas, while being guided to think about their own future through the lens of different design concepts.
The students discussed the complexity of the concept of “entanglement” and “knotty objects,” which refers to how various practices, technologies, practices, and processes become “entangled” in an object, and how this affects societies and is in turn affected by society.
In another exercise, the students discussed the L5 space colony. L5 is an area of the solar system where the gravitational force is neutral, making it suitable for operating satellites and a launch pad for future space explorations.
“We imagined ourselves as a NASA team, that was asked to find innovative ideas to recruit people to live in this society. The groups shared their ideas, which were very different from conventional methods of recruiting people for space exploration. Also, we described a day-in-the-life of a person in the L5 colony and the importance of togetherness among the people in this society,” Muhamed shared.
“The teamwork and communication skills that I acquired from KU have truly helped me throughout this session. The program itself was a different experience than the usual virtual meeting to think about our future.”
Erica Solomon
Senior Publication Specialist
2 November 2021
