To make your mark in computer science visit the QCRI Summer Internship Programme Open House

Next week, university students studying computer science and computer engineering will have a golden opportunity to learn how they might win a coveted place on Qatar Computing Research Institute’s (QCRI) prestigious Summer Internship Programme. 

At an ‘Open House’ event to be hosted at QCRI, a national research institute established by Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, students will receive the full details about the eight-week programme that offers participants a unique opportunity to develop their computing and research skills through addressing real, practical computing challenges. 

Scientists and software engineers from QCRI’s research teams will be on hand to inform prospective interns about the 2014 summer projects, and to explain how interns work alongside research staff to learn and achieve results. Alumni from past QCRI summer internship programmes will also be present to talk about their own experiences. 

Discussing the benefits of the programme, Dr Eman Fituri, Director of Education Initiatives at QCRI, said: “QCRI’s Summer Internship Programme is designed to benefit and support the best computer scientists and engineers of tomorrow. 

“We are proud of the innovation displayed by the interns from our previous summer programs, and look forward to new students collaborating on the 30 or so fascinating projects this summer as they hone their own analytical and research skills,” she added. 

Now in its third year, the QCRI Summer Internship Programme, under the theme ‘Hot Summer, Cool Research’, emphasises hands-on experience by asking students to apply their theoretical and practical knowledge of research and programming, while drawing on their experience in mathematics, algorithms and digital media technologies such as Twitter and Google. 

In line with QCRI’s mission to build Qatar’s innovation and technology capacity, the programme offers a variety of practical projects from which students can choose. One project example is with QCRI’s social computing team, where students would work on making Qatar-based news stories more appealing to foreign audiences, or interpret social media messaging during disasters as a guide for humanitarian response. 

Alternatively, applicants might consider working on projects in Arabic language technologies ranging from speech recognition to language learning via Google Glass. They may prefer to work in other areas of national priority including cyber security, sports analytics, and big data analysis in the cloud, to name but a few. 

The QCRI Summer Internship Programme will run for eight weeks from 18 May to 10 July this year.

Alumni of the QCRI Summer Internship Programme have had numerous successes since graduating. Two of QCRI’s 2013 summer intern projects won awards in the ICT student research category at the 2013 Annual Research Conference.  Fathima Mona Thowfeek from Qatar University, and Sayed Ali Hashim Moosavi and Hanan Mohammed from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, won first place for their work in optical character recognition of historical Arabic documents. Another team took third prize for developing a humanitarian computing library.  

Speaking about the benefits of the programme, Fathima Mona Thowfeek observed: “Our mentors were passionate scientists who never ceased to amaze me with their depth of knowledge and experience. Working closely with them has inspired me to explore, learn and work with new concepts.” 

The 2014 QCRI Summer Internship Program Open House will take place on Monday 7 April from 3.30pm to 6.00pm at QCRI in Tornado Tower, West Bay, Doha.