Birzeit students win gold in international innovation challenge
A team of Birzeit University engineering students has recently won the Gold Award at the 10th International Invention of Exhibitions and the 3rd World Invention and Innovation Forum (IEI & WIIF 2018), held in Foshan, China, for their invention of a prosthetic arm.
The team, made up of Ahmad Al-Bisher, Ahmad Sajdyeh, Mahmoud Ashour, and Nasir Dalash and supervised by Professor of Mechanical Engineering Sameh Abu Awad, created an artificial arm that can be controlled via signals sent from the muscles, allowing amputees or people with disabilities to manipulate everyday items with ease.
The idea for the project came from Sajdyeh’s own need for a relatively-inexpensive prosthetic arm after a bomb left by Israeli soldiers in Qalandiya amputated his right hand in November 2014.
Sajdyeh contacted several international prosthetics companies in hopes of regaining mobility and dexterity, but the solutions they offered were extremely expensive. He also approached Palestinian charities and associations which help amputees travel abroad for prosthetic implants, but they also couldn’t help him.
Despite the odds stacked against him, Sajdyeh didn’t lose hope and decided to create a prosthetic arm himself with the help of his colleagues.
Sponsored by the China Association of Inventors and the International Federation of Inventors’ Association, the International Invention of Exhibitions and the World Invention and Innovation Forum present the world’s latest inventions, achievements, and services. The events include a professional committee of judges who appraise the inventions and grant Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Special awards.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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