Ramallah – Palestine Economy Portal

On Monday the 29th of October 2018, “Haseeb Sabbagh and Saeed Khoury” prize for engineering announced, in their third summit, the names of the winners of their prize for the two categories: Creative Architect and Projects for Graduate students. The winners were announced during the formal ceremony that took place in the Municipal Stage of Ramallah City Hall joined by an audience of those interested in the field of reconstruction.

The head of the committee, Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh, said that the prize, in its third season, achieved its goal of celebrating creativity and creators, because the individual’s creativity is an incentive of development.

He added: Engineering is the stone, the resilience, and the resistance against settlements, displacement, and the incubator of the cultural identity of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian houses are older than Israel and the Palestinian architecture is anchored in the earth, the development of the Palestinian village and city as a result of the natural development of geography, while a settlement is the title for land grab and the distortion and disfigurement of geography.

As for Engineer Samer Khoury, who delivered the “Khoury and Sabbagh” speech said that the teachers’ dream was to build Palestine, because the house, the museum, and the municipality will remain if peace came or did not prevail. Khoury pointed that the dream will happen right now under the leadership of H.E. President Abu Mazen. Khoury expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the prize committee and his joy that it will hold the name of the teachers who are continuously working to support the Palestinian engineers and to uphold them.

Engineer Waleed Salman announced that the individual arbitration committee of the Graduation students decided to give the engineering price to Engineer Sameer Abdulhadi and the late Engineer Ibrahim Abu Ayyash to honor them for their ingenuity in Palestine and all around the world.

On the other hand, Engineer Majdi Al-Saleh announced that the arbitration committee of the Graduation student projects gave a prize to the project “Hamzat Wasel” which was designed by four students in the Islamic University in Gaza, these students are: Shaima Al-khazandar, Laila Abu Oudeh, Alaa’ Abu Saleem and Farah Tanous. The committee also gave an appreciation certificate to a project made by students from Al-Andaleeb Nursing College in

Nablus which was represented by: Kareem Abulsalam, Saif Johari and Murad Nimri from the faculty of engineering in Al-Najah University.

Engineer Samar Al-Nather announced that the prize for the Creative Architect was withheld because the standards of the submitted projects didn’t meet the standards of the prize. Nevertheless, two projects deserved the prize but they didn’t finish two working years as prerequisite of the prize.

The four students from Gaza accepted their awards of $6,000 dollar in the ceremony which was hosted simultaneously with the ceremony in Ramallah. The honoring was live broadcasted. The Dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology, Dr. Khaled Sahili, received the appreciation certificate on behalf of the students for the project of Al-Andaleeb Nursing College.

Mr. Sameer Abdelhadi received an award on behalf of the engineer Sa’d Abdelhadi who sent his appreciation to the award committee and his pride for getting this award. He also announced his desire of donating the award, with value of $10,000, to the needy student fund in Birzeit University.

The award that was handed to the late engineer Ibrahim Abu Ayyash was accepted on behalf of him by his nephew Ibrahim Badawi Abu Ayyash who sent his family’s appreciation and pride in this award handed to the late engineer years after he passed away.

On the other hand, the head of the engineers association, Engineer Jalal AlDbaik, presented the efforts of his association as to the rise of engineering and engineers and the developing of their field of work and practice. He confirmed that the “Sabbagh and Khoury” Engineering prize forms an important incentive for creativity and excellence and achieving sustainable development in Palestine.

“Haseeb Sabbagh and Saeed Khoury” Prize for engineering was founded through a decree by the President H.E. Mahmoud Abbas in 2015.  It is managed by a committee made of prominent Palestinian public figures, Engineers, or architects, from Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem and diaspora.