Children to dislpay tech skills at World Robot Olympiad

Over 300 schoolchildren from the GCC and Mena region are expected to participate in the 2012 World Robot Olympiad (WRO)–Arabia tomorrow (Saturday, October 20th) at the Aspire Dome in Doha. The competition, hosted by the College of the North Atlantic - Qatar and Maersk Oil Qatar, will include teams from Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Lebanon, Egypt and Algeria who will compete against each other to be the best in the Arab world. It is only the second time the WRO-Arabia competition has been held, and marks the first time in Qatar. Building on the success of the recent Qatar National Robot Olympiad, the event is aimed at encouraging broader participation from across the region. The event is open to the public who will be able to cheer on the robot action on the Regular category game tables, or get up close and personal with the interesting inventions from the Open category. Dr Theodore Chiasson, dean, School of Information Technology at CNA-Q, is the national representative for the WRO in Qatar. “We are expecting 65 teams from Qatar to join the WRO-Arabia competition – in contrast, only three teams from Qatar participated in last year’s WRO-Arabia when it was hosted in Abu Dhabi,” explained Dr Chiasson. Lewis Affleck, managing director of Maersk Oil Qatar stated that by partnering in the educational initiative, the company is enabling more children in Qatar to gain an early interest in technologies that drive Qatar’s continued growth and development. “The World Robot Olympiad -Arabia will showcase the talent of students in Qatar to an even wider audience as they get to pitch their skills against the best in the region.”