KUWAIT: A group photo featuring the winning students and staff from the Australian College of Kuwait.

KUWAIT: Five Engineering students from the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK) won first and second places in the Digital Transformation Hackathon 2021 competition, organized by the Ministry of Oil. The competition took place from April 26, and concluded on May 30, 2021; yet, the winners of the competition were announced only on November 1, with an award ceremony held to honor them.

The Digital Transformation Hackathon competition brought together students and recent graduates from numerous universities in Kuwait, along with professionals in the oil industry, to compete in developing applications that can be added to the AGORA platform, which is an open, secure and scalable platform enabling oil and gas industry to connect physical assets to the digital world.

The competition had students compete in teams in various category groups. ACK students competed in the contestant Group A, which consisted of active students from different universities, and in Group D that consisted of fresh graduates or employees with less than five years seniority in a non-oil and gas industry related company.

The team that won the first place (Gold Award) in Group D included two ACK Alumni: Aiya Chen Daoliang, Petroleum Engineering Graduate, and Ahmad Hatem Al-Sheikh, Civil Engineering Graduate. As for the team that won the second place (Silver Award) in Group A, it was composed of Sayuri Chamathka Gunawardena, Petroleum Engineering Graduate; Taiyeba Almgir Alamgir, ACK Petroleum Engineering student; and Zahra Ali Sayed AlMousawi, ACK Electrical Engineering student. Both teams were under the supervision of Dr Mohamed Omar, Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering at ACK, and Dr Mohamed Mabrok, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Physics at ACK.

Commenting on the success of the students, Dr Mortadha Al Saba, Head of Petroleum Engineering department and Assistant Professor at ACK, said: "This achievement shows the dedication, commitment, and creativity of our engineering students at ACK along with continuous support from our faculty."