Student Magazine

ACKINSIDE

ISSUE 4 - 2018/2019

Featuring the Celebrations of the National & Liberation Days of Kuwait

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Huawei ICT Competition in ChinaInterview with ACK Student Maryam Al Qallaf by Sayuri Gunawardena

KOC’s Science Innovation CompetitionInterview by Rahma Yousef

Hala February and Samra NightArticle by Dalal Al-Shatti

National & Liberation Days CSR CampaignArticle by Dalal Al-Shatti

February Food Festival, Dama and Kout Bo 4 TournamentsArticle by Dalal Al-Shatti

“Discover the Champion Within” by Ms. Ramona SmithArticle by Shahad Dawara

Sports Interview with Latifa Al-OwaidArticle by Mohammad Hamadah

Nasser Al-Haza’a from ACK’s Cooking ClubInterview by Sayuri Gunawardena

Picture of the Month

Monthly ContestOrganized by Hamad Al-Hariri

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Magazine Editors: Rahma Yousef and Hamad Al-HaririDesigned by: Rahma Yousef

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1. What encouraged you to take part in the ICT competition held by Huawei?

It was in fact one of my instructors who advised me to register after the Huawei seminar that was held at ACK. He said that it would be nice to have a new learning experience in a whole new country. Therefore, I registered.

2. Describe what you had to do during the Huawei ICT competition held in China.

It was the longest exam ever. It was held from 10 am to 6 pm with only a 30-minute break. The examiners gave the contestants a map to follow for connecting a real network using a server, routers, switches, and create a cloud computing. Because cloud computing is new, it was the most difficult part even for the Computer Science students that participated in the competition.

3. What was it like being able to meet other foreign students and compete against them?

It was a great opportunity to meet them. They were very nice and friendly. All of them came to the competition with full energy and enthusiasm to win.

4. Was it more stressful because of all the people that are watching?

In the exam, there was no time to see other people. The most stressful part of the competition was the time, which was running very quickly.

5. How do you think you performed? Are you satisfied with how you participated in the competition?

Getting the 2nd place in the exam in Kuwait and then traveling to China for participating in the Middle East ICT finals was not expected. I still feel like they were all just dreams.

6. What was your experience like in China?

China is a beautiful country and its people are friendly. Most of the people do not speak English, but they try to understand my signs. What I saw there was the evolution of society and the development of technology. I hope Kuwait reaches this level soon.

7. What did you visit in China?

I visited two headquarters of Huawei. Both of them were huge. I liked the headquarter in Dongguan that has a train that travels between 12 different replicated European cities. It was amazing. Also, the SUSTech College in Shenzhen, and Huawei Technology Exhibition. In China, everything is huge.

8. Do you plan to participate in more competitions in the future?

Surely. Next time I want to win one of the three ranks in the Middle East ICT Finals. Even though it is not my major, it is not impossible to learn and win.

Interview with ACK Student Maryam Al Qallaf by Sayuri Gunawardena

HUAWEI ICT COMPETITION IN CHINAThe Huawei Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Competition is held annually by Huawei with different regional sections. Students from different universities compete within regional divisions where only the top 25 in each country are selected to compete in China. Four Students from ACK earned the 1st and 2nd places in the recent Huawei ICT competition and they were selected to compete in the International Competition in China. Below is one of the winners’ Maryam Al Qallaf’s experience:

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Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) organized a Science Innovation Competition to develop projects that promote innovation in design and engineering. The competition was held on 27th and 28th January at the Ahmad Al Jaber Oil and Gas Exhibition.

The competition included students from the Australian College of Kuwait, Kuwait University, the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, and the American University of the Middle East. The first and the second place were awarded to ACK’s School of Engineering students on 30th January 2019.

The first place winners were a group from the Petroleum Engineering Department for the project titled “Development of Lost Circulation Treatments to Cure Naturally Fractured Formations and Reservoirs”. It was supervised by Dr. Mortadha Al Saba and the group members were Mohammad Al Mejadi, Ali Farhat, Yousef Al Darakh, Mohammad Fahmy and Jaber Majli.

The Mechanical Engineering Department won the second place for the project titled “plant Irrigation Water Sprinkler Robot”. It was supervised by Dr. Adel Younis, and the group members were Dalal Al Salahi, Ahmad Al Khudher, Hamoud Al Baijan, Eissa Al Failakawi, and Mohamed Ahmed.

Interview by Rahma Yousef

KOC’S SCIENCE INNOVATION COMPETITION

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Interviewing: Ali Farhat, Member of the First Place Group.

1. Briefly explain your project and the idea behind it. Our project is about the lost circulation material. Those are conventional drilling fluid mixed with certain materials or additives known as LCMs. Those LCMs are added to the drilling fluid when there are fractures inside the formation.

During the drilling operation, the mixed drilling fluid would enter the fractured formation and seal them. Fractures are very bad for the drilling operation as they can result in the drilling fluid escaping inside the formation. This is unwanted as the drilling fluid is the most important factor in controlling the wellbore pressure during the drilling operation.

Therefore, we designed four blends of different LCM materials using unconventional LCMs. Then, we needed to test those blends, so we came up with the idea of creating an apparatus. The apparatus was able to measure 3 of the most crucial drilling fluid parameters at the same time. This feature is what distinguished us and made our apparatus one of a kind.

2. How did you prepare yourself for the competition? The preparation was not difficult as it was similar to our senior exhibition. We held meetings to discuss main points to talk about, revised the whole report and just went out to perform our best.

3. How did you manage to outsmart all the other contestants? The idea and the project itself were the main stars, along with the execution of the group members. During the exhibition, we were only focused on our project and the best way we would present it.

4. How was the experience overall? The experience was genuinely amazing. We loved every moment of it. Although we were nervous at the beginning, we felt confident as we saw positive reactions and responses from the evaluating committee.

5. How are you feeling after winning such a big competition? It feels great and we are so proud of ourselves and our instructor. The hard work and the late-night work has paid off and we would like to thank ACK for providing us this opportunity to show Kuwait and hopefully the world later what we can achieve.

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Article by Dalal Al-Shatti

The Hala February is an annual event celebrated throughout the month of February referring to the Kuwait National and Liberation Days which fall on 25th and 26th February. It is one of the most joyful months of the year because of all the festivals and celebrations.

This year, the Australian College of Kuwait conducted several events and activities to spread joy among their staff and students. These events included ACK’s Samra Night organized by the Public Relations Department.

The Samra Night tickets were available to ACK students for free. On 20th February 2019, the singer Fahad Al-Mulla and his band were invited to the ACK Auditorium at 7:30 pm to perform. The music night was full of traditional Kuwaiti songs expressing the love and pride of Kuwait in these special days.

HALA FEBRUARY & SAMRA NIGHT

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The Public Relations Department organized a corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign to clean the environment during the Kuwait National and Liberation Days celebrations.

ACK students volunteered to share the national spirit and express their love to Kuwait.

The campaign was conducted on 25th February 2019. All the volunteers headed to the Arabian Gulf Street in order to clean the street and the beach.

Volunteers’ Names:

Ms. Mariam Al Maraghi Abdullah AshkananiMohammed Al Musallam Abdulnaser Mohammad Sara Al Deken Yasmeen Al SarrafMohammad Al Otaibi Barihan Al Zuhiri

CSR CAMPAIGNArticle by Dalal Al-Shatti

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On 17th February 2019, the Student Life Department organized a special food festival themed around the Kuwait National and Liberation Days celebrations for students and staff members. The festival included food stations from Johnny Rockets, Haute, Dose, Osaka, Chubby Balls, Crave and various kinds of cuisine. As for the music, the DJ selected both national songs and new modern music which filled the festival with a cheerful atmosphere. The Student Life team organized a successful and very joyful week filled with entertainment showcasing the Kuwaiti culture including a competition of two traditional games in Kuwait known as Dama and Kout.

Dama is played by two players who place small round wooden pieces in black and white on 64 small squares drawn on a square piece of cloth or a wooden board. The ACK tournament was held on 19th February 2019, and the winner was Zakariya Adan.

Kout is the most popular Kuwaiti card game in which six players compete. The tournament was held on 20th February 2019, and the winners were Abdul Wahab Al Nassar and Meshari Al Baker.

Article by Dalal Al-Shatti

FEBRUARY FOOD FEST., DAMA & KOUT BO 4 TOURNAMENTS

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“DISCOVER THE CHAMPION WITHIN”Organized by the School of Business - Article by Shahad Dawara

On 30th January 2019, the Australian College of Kuwait welcomed the world champion of public speaking in 2018, Ramona Smith, who gave a talk about the journey of public speaking, achievements and how she went through conflicts in her career to achieve what she is today.

Ramona Smith talked about the ups and downs of her journey. She had started by talking about how being arrogant affected her negatively and how her over self-confidence brought her down. Working and communicating with others with humbleness and modesty will make you achieve what you want through life. That is the secret key to leading and accomplishing.

She said that you should never give up through your journey because you are your own motivation. If you have no supporters, no one will pick you up if you don’t do it yourself. As Ramona Smith mentioned, she had failed many times through her toastmaster journey. She even gave up to some point, but she lifted herself up and after two years of having a break she came back stronger and came to the world championship of public speaking.

Ramona Smith gave us very good advice from her previous experiences. We all must be thankful that there is someone in our life that motivates us and

advises us and in case we don’t have that person, we must be our own motivation. We all have the responsibility to be great because young people in our life are looking up to us and watching us. Therefore we need to be great role models without being arrogant.

In addition, just because you failed once, twice or even three times, it doesn’t mean you can’t go back and fix what you have failed at. Don’t just stop in the middle of the road and give up because this road will lead you to nowhere. You go fix it, clean it up and re-do it in the best way you can imagine.

Always be resilient and keep trying, In the end, you will harvest overtime what you have once planted.

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By Mohammad Hamadah

“Sports build good habits, confidence, and discipline. They make players into community leaders and teach them how to strive for a goal, handle mistakes, and cherish growth opportunities.” (Julie Foudy)

Latifa Al-Owaid is one of the outstanding players in the ACK Basketball Team. She started playing basketball when she was in middle school, and later she discovered her interest in it. The amount of joy and energy she experienced made her continue the practice until the end of high school.

As she enrolled in ACK, initially she started practicing football, but she realized that her only passion was to follow her interest and therefore she joined the ACK basketball team and started her journey.

In the beginning, Latifa was shy and hesitated to sign up to the basketball team, but the coach was able to convince her and by that, she has reached new heights in basketball.

ACK’s basketball coach always made sure to guide and motivate Latifa and other team members to practice more and achieve their best by mentoring, cheering and providing valuable advice that would help them progress.

As in every journey, there are challenges, and Latifa had one big challenge which was time management. Therefore, she honed her time management skills to be able to balance between her academics and practicing. In addition, ACK always made sure that academics comes first, but at the same time they give her the chance to participate in tournaments.

Latifa believes that practice makes perfect and nothing is impossible, including that everyone can do anything as long as they never give up. Due to practicing hard, the ACK basketball team qualified for the international Gulf championship tournament and has played against different universities and colleges.

ACK basketball team are doing very well, especially that many female students are joining, which would build a stronger team and along with a great coach they should be advancing steadily through the upcoming tournaments.

SPORTS INTERVIEW WITH LATIFA AL-OWAID

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Interview by Sayuri Gunawardena

NASSER AL-HAZA’A - MEMBER OF THE ACK COOKING CLUB

1. What made you want to join the ACK Cooking Club?

During the English 1 course, my friend told me “Nasser, you love cooking and I love cooking. We both love to create something from scratch”. So, when he suggested that we join the ACK Cooking Club, I thought sure, why not. That’s when we went to the Student Life Department and signed up as members of the ACK Cooking Club.

2. When did you start finding an interest in cooking?

When I was six or seven years old, I started finding an interest in cooking from my mom. She used to cook meals for us and I used to watch how she cooked all day. So I told her “Mom, can you teach me?” and she did. When I got used to cooking, my first dish was a pizza. I did it with bread, ketchup, olive oil and every type of topping there is. People loved my pizza and when they tasted it they would not believe that I was the one who made it. 3. What kind of recipes do you follow in the club?

We don’t usually follow any recipes. We are really inventive and try to make things ourselves without referring to recipes.

4. Which has been your favorite dish to cook/bake?

My favorite dish to cook is pasta because I personally love pasta. I did it and my friends and my family liked it as well. 5. What kind of events does the ACK Cooking Club organize?

The Cooking Club organizes a variety of events including the Food Fest., Fresh Juice Day, Pasta Day, etc. These are held weekly. We also followed a pink pasta recipe by an Italian chef for the Breast Cancer Awareness event (picture on the right). We did juices, food, hotdogs, and many more.

6. Have the members of the ACK Cooking Club participated in any external cooking events? Please Describe.

Of course. All of the other members also participated. They were useful and helpful and we would help each other during these events.

7. What will a new member learn by joining the ACK Cooking Club?

If a new member joins, they will learn how to cook if they don’t already. Learn how to juice, learn different techniques of cooking. They also learn life skills and not just cooking.

Picture of the Month

To get featured in this spot, send an e-mail of your picture to insideackmag@ack.edu.kw and the best photograph will be selected by the Photography

Club and published in the next issue of the magazine.

Photo by Hamad Faraj

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When did Kuwait gain independence from the UK?

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MONTHLY CONTESTLast Issue’s Winner

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When was ACK established?

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2004

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