Q Life Magazine Q Magazine (US) June 2017 | Page 20

Qatar and the US | | Issue 3 From Doha to DC: Spotlight on Qatar’s Promotion of Global Citizenry via International Education years spent in Washington, DC. While Moneera was working abroad and collaborating with people from different places, she felt a responsibility to act as an Ambassador for her home country and her heritage. When she thought about students learning Arabic, she felt there was a tool missing that could assist them in connecting to the language. Moneera created a device to help students write their names in Arabic as a way to find a personal connection to the language. Moneera Al-Badi Moneera Al-Badi is a proud Qatari. She has lived in Qatar all of her life – except for the two 20 With support from Qatar Foundation International (QFI), Moneera designed and patented The Q Wheel or “Madar Al-Huruf.” “Madar Al-Huruf,” which means “wheel of letters” in Arabic, is a valuable, open, and free language tool that introduces users to the Arabic alphabet. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the Arabic alphabet can write his/her name by matching English letters and sounds to their Arabic phonetic counterparts. The wheel has been used to ease Arabic learning and communication by demystifying the characters, which can be perceived as intimidating. Due to the success and demand of the physical Arabic wheel, QFI partnered with Moneera and Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), a non-profit, multidisciplinary computing research institute, to adapt the design into a mobile application. The app was subsequently nominated to represent Qatar at the World Summit Award Mobile 2016. Mohammed Al-Muhannadi “Change is what I aimed for,” said Mohammed Al-Muhannadi, founder of 1Earth1Ocean (1E1O). “Contribution to the community was the way to reach it.” After returning from Ocean For Life, a summer program organized by Qatar Foundation International, Mohammed said that he had found a different perspective about many things, most importantly community service. Mohammed, who has become a leading student advocate for the environment in Qatar, aimed to create a project that would change his country for the better. He wanted to start a venture that would engage and inspire Qatari youth to protect the environment in their country. He spent long hours studying the issues facing the environment in Qatar, but Mohammed also delved into the issues that he felt were facing his local community. The result was the creation of 1E1O, an organization that helps young Qataris raise awareness of environmental issues through the use of new and social media, and make the change now which will benefit future generations. 1E1O also organizes environmental trips, sets up workshops, and holds local events, such as beach cleanups. Since he began the project, Mohammed has recruited students from schools across Qatar and united them in a mission to protect the country’s environment. He has led student excursions to Qatar’s coast, teaching his peers about the importance of the mangroves, and showing students how to use QFI’s Mapping the Mangroves app to monitor the coastal ecosystem. During the 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference, he represented the Qatari youth voice on a panel that included experts from Conservation International, the Qatar Environmental Research Institute, and other regional environmental organizations. 21