Abdelaziz Saeed Mohamed Alzaabi Selected to Attend for Outstanding Academic Performance and Leadership Skills
Khalifa University MSc in Mechanical Engineering alumnus Abdelaziz Saeed Mohamed Alzaabi was among four Emirati graduates selected to represent the UAE at the Nobel Awards Ceremony 2018 in Stockholm, Sweden, where awardees received their Nobel Medals and Diploma from His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
The graduates were given this unprecedented honor through the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF), which also organized the trip and their collaboration with Nobel Prize Foundation in Sweden. Al Zaabi was selected based on his outstanding academic performance and leadership skills within the university and the broader UAE community.
The four were greeted by H.E. Sultan Al Kaitoob, UAE Ambassador to Sweden, as well as MBRF’s Chief Executive Officer Jamal bin Huwaireb.
“His excellency Al Kaitoob reiterated the government’s support for research and science as well as the goal of having an Emirati win a Nobel prize in the coming years,” Al Zaabi shared, referencing a quote from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minster of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who said: “We work today to develop a generation of UAE scientists able to compete for Nobel Prize in the next decades”.
The trip aimed to inspire promising young Emirati towards achieving their personal and professional goals in science, towards ultimately receiving the Nobel Prize.
In addition to the ceremony and prize distribution on 10 December, the UAE graduate group also attended the Nobel Week Dialogue where previous laureates discussed “Water matters”, the main topic for the year. The event also had sessions on the importance of water and scientific topics about water, as well as the possible existence of life and water on Mars.
Alzaabi and the three other Emiratis – two from UAE University, one from Zayed University – were hosted by the Nobel Foundation in the Nobel Museum in Stockholm and were given a tour on the laureates’ achievements and their artifacts that they provided to represent their achievements at the museum.
Alzaabi was selected to attend the Nobel event for his outstanding academic performance and leadership skills within Khalifa University and the broader UAE community. He won his place to represent Khalifa University and the UAE after an extensive interview in April 2018.
Earlier this year, Alzaabi was selected as a member of the UAE Youth Science Council. He also presented a paper at the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2018) in Miyazaki, Japan, since his research focuses on new robotics (underwater) technologies. Moreover, in his role as a teaching assistant he supports and equips freshmen engineering students with the skills needed to innovate and reach beyond their imagination and enhance traditional engineering by building and solving real engineering problems.
Abdelaziz also has several scientific contributions and has co-authored several journal papers since his final year in the undergraduate program at Khalifa University. Some of the education excellence awards he has received include H.H Sheikh Khalifa Award for Excellence in academic Achievements, H.H Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Award for Excellence in Academic Achievements, Sharjah Award, and gold medals of the Chemistry and Physics National Olympics which were awarded by the Emirates Association for the Gifted and Ministry of Education.
The Nobel award ceremony is attended by prominent academics, scientists and previous Nobel laureates. This year’s ceremony marked the first time students from the Arab world were selected to attend. The UAE was the first country to secure a place for four students to attend the ceremony following a collaboration between Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF) and the Nobel Prize Foundation in Sweden.
Clarence Michael
News Writer
3 January 2019
