Qatar Computing Research Institute Gets High School Students Coding with Python Competition

Creative Space, part of the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) under Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), has announced the winners of its Python Programming Competition, which challenged 90 middle and high school students to put their coding skills to the test.

The students learned the coding language during a 30-hour online program offered by QCRI over the course of the current academic year. The participants comprised two groups of students from international schools and five groups from 11 Ministry of Education schools. The successful program concluded with the Python Competition held on April 10, challenging the students to program a Tic-Tac-Toe game using Python. With the option of competing individually or in teams of two, the students submitted their programs with a video to demonstrate their understanding.

QCRI invited a team of four judges to help in selecting the individual winners and teams: Abdelkarim Zidani, an offensive security engineer based in the Netherlands; Nour Tabet, outreach coordinator for computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar; Ahmad Musleh; and Wafa Waheeda, both software engineers at QCRI.

“The students impressed us with their programming skills and problem-solving abilities, said Ms. Ikram Zidani, Creative Space Coordinator at QCRI, after the competition. “QCRI designed the intensive Python course and the competition to help equip these budding programmers with the skills, knowledge, and experience in the intricacies of programming language to begin their learning path early. The course is not only excellent preparation for the challenges of the university-level programs offered at HBKU but challenged the students to demonstrate their academic and personal skills. Well done to our winners.”

QCRI’s Python Competition winners are, in first place - Team: Creative Coders with Anas Osama Abdulhamied Mosaad and Ahmad Osama Abdulhamied Mosaad; and Individual: Mahmoud Amr Mohamed. In second place - Team: Artificial Intelligence with Momen Ahmed Awad Albanna and Ali Hamza Shaar; and Individual: Mohamed Abdulmajeed AlBulushi. In third place – Teams: Python Bros with Mohamed Refaaz and Hamad Refaaz; and Programmers with Mohammed Nasser Al-Bader and Akram Alhariri.

“The course had several positive aspects, but from my point of view I think giving the students the opportunity to innovate was the distinctive one that gave a beautiful and unique character to the course, and of course all thanks to Dr. Eman Fituri, the Director of Educational Initiatives at QCRI, and Engineer Ikram for guiding us and teaching us throughout the course,” said AlBulushi, a student from Qatar Banking Studies and Business Administration School.

“I liked the experience of competing against other people and measuring my strengths and my weaknesses. I would like to thank our teachers Dr. Eman and Ms. Ikram, Creative Space and the judges for all the time they put in to teach us how to code,” said AlHariri, an international student from UK Trinity Academy.

For more information on the work of Qatar Computing Research Institute, please visit qcri.hbku.edu.qa