The Foundation stated that the center was established under the guidance of His Excellency Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani in support of the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030. In order to achieve the second national development strategy 2018-2022.

The Hamad Bin Jassim Center for Computing Sciences Education comes from the institution’s awareness that technology has come a long way in the field of education and that it is necessary to focus and pay attention to technology to improve the quality of education. And spreading awareness among school students of the importance of the role of computer science in developing societies, Encouraging them to study scientific disciplines, Contributing to building a knowledge-based national economy.

The center receives direct attention and follow-up from His Excellency Sheikh Nawaf bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jassim and Hamad bin Jassim Charitable Foundation, To achieve its goals of improving school students’ skills in the field of computing, Encouraging them to innovate, create, critically think, and move towards scientific specializations. Preparing and qualifying them to deal with future technologies.

The center contributes to teaching public and private school students the basics of computer science and computational thinking skills. In addition to developing their capabilities in the field of innovations and robotics software, The efforts of the administration and faculty members at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar are of great importance in activating the center’s services and enhancing its activities, as well as working to instill a culture of computing in the hearts of young people through teaching the most important computing programs. Such as “Alice” of the Middle East and “Mindcraft”.

Serving 5,500 students

The “Alice” project for teaching programming and computer science, which is implemented at the center, is one of the most modern educational curricula in the world. It allows schools to adopt computer science using the latest methods and effective programs. It enables the user of the program to create electronic games or 3D animation, along with other goals. It is distinguished from other programming education programs in that it combines ease of use and many features. It has been adopted in the educational curricula in Qatar since 2014. Given its importance, the Hamad Bin Jassim Center for Computing Science Education worked to provide scientific material for teaching programming (Alice Middle East) in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. 5,500 students in government schools benefited from it. 60 male and female teachers were trained in 48 government schools during the 2018-2019 academic year. The center also worked to train and educate 300 teachers and students on the basics of computer science in 8 private schools in the country.

Support the annual “Alice” competition

Carnegie Mellon University holds an annual competition for schools around the “Alice” program, with support from the Qatar Foundation. With the participation of all private and public schools of all educational levels, This event is sponsored by a number of the largest technology companies in Qatar. As well as telecommunications companies and various ministries in the country, The program is supported by the Hamad Bin Jassim Charitable Foundation. The number of participants in the five editions of the competition has reached more than 600 students since the launch of its first edition in 2016.

He succeeded in distance education

After the spread of the Corona virus, The center closed its doors, But its work team took quick steps to follow up on the achievement. This is done by designing content for computer science workshops that are compatible with emerging changes. It meets the requirements of distance learning, It was in accordance with the standards followed in designing previous events. Which works to help students and teachers to develop themselves in the field of computers, Events and activities continued to be organized remotely from March to August 2020, which represented the peak period of the spread of the virus. Such as a workshop on teaching programming electronic games, which was organized twice, This workshop enables participants to create their own electronic games and publish them on the Internet. There was also a program that included two workshops for teachers, The first is for a week to train teachers on programming based on programming cubes using Alice. The second is about programming with codes encoded using the Python language, In the presence of approximately 25 teachers from various schools in Qatar.

Support 40 events

The center supports the “Mindcraft” program. Which aims to encourage high school students to engage in the field of robot programming, innovation, and creative thinking, It was launched by Carnegie University and includes introductory workshops for high school students about computer science.

Since the beginning of the school year, The center implemented 15 Minecraft events in which 1,800 students registered, of whom more than 1,100 attended. Since its launch in 2016, more than 6,000 students have registered in the program’s activities, of whom more than 4,000 attended. The center continued its activity during the Corona pandemic, as it implemented 6 educational workshops related to the program, with 200 students participating. Two courses in game design and programming were also implemented.

The center’s external participation

The center has many participations held outside it, Including the effectiveness of teaching mobile application programming, Teaching the principles of computer science to children, Courses were held during Science Week organized by schools. There are plans to participate in training teams to participate in computer science events in cooperation with other educational institutions. The Center also communicates with educational institutions outside Qatar to cooperate in this field. Starting in September, the center will train more than 70 teachers outside Qatar with the aim of spreading computer science and contributing to the development of the educational process.