Dell EMC’s Envision the Future Competition Showcases the Next Generation of IT Professionals

Wednesday 19 October 2016
Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Middle East, EMC Corporation

Dubai - MENA Herald: Dell EMC today announced the successful close of their annual graduation project competition for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Called “Envision The Future”, the competition was open to senior undergraduate students enrolled in the EMC Academic Alliance program, and saw three winning teams emerge from 22 universities. With over 270 students participated in teams, “Envision the Future” channeled creative efforts towards concepts that could be instrumental in IT transformation.
Through this annual graduate competition which is sponsored by the Egyptian Centre of Excellence (COE), Dell EMC aims to promote youth innovation and talent in the field of technology across the Middle East and Africa. The winning projects were from King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, Helwan University in Egypt and King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia. With women constituting 40% of the entries, the competition brought women to the fore as key enablers of IT in a new age of rapid digitization. Over 170 leading universities from across the region have welcomed this initiative by Dell EMC to underpin and bridge academia and technology trends.
Designed specifically for senior undergraduate students, the competition received 65 project entries from the UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kenya and Morocco. The primary objective of the competition is to stimulate creativity and enable students to explore emerging technologies. Keeping in line with this objective, this platform also provides an ideal opportunity to expose students to a whole new set of technological possibilities offered by cloud, software-defined storage, big data and security. It requires the participants to combine open-source tools, cutting-edge techniques and various technology platforms to deliver innovative solutions that not only help overcome challenges in the region, but also are leveraged into potential avenues for business.
The projects were assessed in four phases by a select panel of judges from around the globe. The judging criteria were governed by a pre-determined methodology called blind judging - a process wherein the entries have no identifying elements of the participants such as names or location. The entire process resulted in three winning teams from renowned universities in the Middle East. These teams were given the opportunity to present a prototype of their idea.
This unique platform allows students to showcase their talent and leverage the knowledge acquired through the Dell EMC Academic Alliance. As Dell EMC stands at the forefront of innovation, this competition is an effective way to deliver best practices and knowledge to the next generation of IT leaders.
Dell EMC Quote:
Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President and Regional Manager, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Middle East, EMC Corporation
“By combining the capabilities of Dell and EMC, our vision is to leverage new technologies to drive human progress. Our collaboration with universities represents one of many tools to increase awareness about new technologies and the possibilities that it can offer. By working with students, who represent the next generation with a unique view of the world, we can identify challenges and deliver solutions based on new technologies and innovative business models, which will help us achieve our vision of building a better world.”
Partner University Quotes:
Dr. Mansour Zuair, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at King Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
“We’re living at a time where rapid and unprecedented change is evident – and we can see it all around us. Students will be the leaders of tomorrow and will be the key players who will drive success and innovation not only in the region, but around the world. “Envision The Future” perfectly sums up the sentiment of our students and is an apt theme for this year’s Dell EMC Graduate Project Competition. Through this annual competition, Dell EMC has provided students in the region with a platform to channel their creativity and we at King Saud University could not be more proud of our students for bagging this prestigious award.”
Prof. Dr. Azza F. Barakat, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Helwan University, Egypt
“The idea behind Dell EMC’s annual Graduate Project Competition resonates with Helwan University’s message of innovation and empowering future leaders. Our graduates have truly done us proud by conceiving such innovative projects and bringing this award to our institution. We have always believed in engaging our students by providing them with the best access to new technologies and ideas and by participating in Dell EMC’s Graduate Project Competition, we are living up to our mission statement, as well as shaping the ICT leaders of the future.”
Dr. Majed A. Alshamari, Dean, Information Systems Department at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia
“Our successful association with this unique platform by Dell EMC offers our students a chance to bring their innovative ideas to life. As an IT enabler, Dell EMC has created a platform which equips our students with the outlook and industry knowledge to meet the challenges of the new digital era. We welcome this visionary initiative and look forward to seeing our students’ brilliant concepts playing an important role in shaping the digital future.”

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