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INTELLIGENCE.
P
rofessionalfeedback
on a new technology or
business idea can be
almost impossible for a
young person to come by, but for
24 undergraduate students and
one graduate student at
Carnegie Mellon University in
Qatar (CMU-Q), the advice
flowed freely from a panel of
experts who reviewed research
projects presented at CMU-Q’s
8th annual ‘Meeting of the
Minds’ research symposium.
The experts, from academia,
government and industry,
explained what they found
interesting about each idea, and
chose the best projects and
posters for special recognition.
The students used research
posters, videos and other visual
aids to present their work, not
only to the panelists but also to
an audience of family, friends,
faculty, and fellow students.
Feedback came in the form of
scores for each project as well as
comments and questions from
the judges.
The judges came from a wide
range of businesses, government
offices and research institutes,
including Qatar Shell, Vodafone
Qatar, iHorizons, PC DealNet,
ictQATAR, Qatar Biobank,
Aspire Zone Foundation, the
Ministry of Environment, the
SYMPOSIUM Ministry of Development
Planning and Statistics, Weill
Cornell Medical College in
Qatar (WCMC-Q), Virginia
Commonwealth University in
Qatar, Qatar University, Qatar
Foundation, Qatar Computing
Research Institute (QCRI), and
Qatar National Research Fund
(QNRF).
Access to feedback from such
distinguished real-world experts
was the most valuable part of
the experience for student Sabih
Bin Wasi. He said: “It’s not just
about presenting our system; it’s
about getting feedback about the
system from the experts, which
would never happen elsewhere.
For example, I would never be
STUDENTS GAIN
REAL-WORLDPERSPECTIVE
ON RESEARCH PROJECTS
able to get in touch with a
principal scientist from QCRI or
the head of QNRF to get
feedback about what we are
trying to do. ‘Meeting of the
Minds’ is a great opportunity for
that kind of communication to
happen.”
Two computer science
students, Aliaa Essameldin and
Mounira Tlili, designed an
application to streamline the
judging process. Their system
allowed the judges to rate the
research posters according to
specific criteria including
creativity of approach,
appearance of the poster, clarity
of the organizational flow, and
significance of the project.
Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar’s ‘Meeting of the Minds’ symposium brings student
researchers and industry experts together for a rewarding give-and-take.
CMU-Q student Afrah Hassan (left) describes her research project to Dr Dirar Khoury, Executive Director, Research Coordination and Special Initiatives,
QF R&D, (right) and Dr Barak Yehya, expert on institutional development at the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (center).

2. www.qf.org.qa 13
Food Effortlessly,’ which he
developed with faculty advisor
Dr Thierry Sans, Assistant
Teaching Professor of Computer
Science. Third prize went to
Noora Al Muftah, a
computational biology student,
who worked with faculty
advisor Khalid Fakhro from
WCMC-Q on the project
‘SNV-Check: A Quality Control
Tool for Familial Exome
Sequencing Data Based on the
Sharing of Rare Genetic
Mutations.’
The winning entry used a
natural language processing
algorithm developed by Neyaz
and Bin Wasi to analyze
thousands of tweets, to
determine whether the tweeters
felt positively, negatively or
neutrally about the topics of
their tweets – a process that,
with users posting upwards of
5,000 tweets per second, it
would be impossible for a
human being to perform
manually.
Before ‘Meeting of the Minds,’
Neyaz and Bin Wasi had
presented their system at
SemEval 2014, an international
competition in computational
semantic evaluation. The only
undergraduates in the
competition, Neyaz and Bin
Wasi were delighted to
take third place.
The sentiments
expressed in tweets
can be especially
valuable to
businesses or
other entities
seeking opinions
because, unlike
sentiments expressed
in traditional opinion-
gathering methods such as
surveys and polls, tweets come
directly from users and are not
filtered or influenced by the
content or presentation of the
questions.
Neyaz and Bin Wasi
capitalized on the value of
unsolicited opinions by
incorporating the computing
results into a business model, an
approach that Bin Wasi says
arose from the structure of
CMU-Q. “It is a great place to
learn computer science in the
context of business,” he said. “It
offers a major called
All of the projects represented
collaborations between students
and their faculty advisors,
representing the core values of
CMU-Q, according to Mark
Stehlik, Associate Dean for
Education. He said: “Research at
Carnegie Mellon is collaborative
and involves teams composed of
faculty, post-doctoral fellows
and students. ‘Meeting of the
Minds’ is an opportunity to
extend this collaboration and
offer students the chance to
engage and network with
experts from local institutions.”
The collaborative aspect of the
symposiumespeciallyimpressed
judge Stephan Vogel, Principal
Scientist, Arabic Language
Technologies, QCRI. He said:
“‘Meeting of the Minds’
highlights the educational effort
involved in creating a poster and
presenting it as part of a team,
which is what the students will
have to do in the future when
they attend conferences. The
quality of the work is
exceptional for undergraduates;
it shows that faculty at Carnegie
Mellon University in Qatar are
doing a good job in mentoring
these young minds.”
The winning entry, ‘Twitter
Sentiment Analysis,’ was
produced by a team of two
students, Bin Wasi and Rukhsar
Neyaz, with guidance from Dr
Behrang Mohit, Assistant
Professor of Computer Science.
Bin Wasi also took second prize
with his project ‘Using
Technology to Help People Save
The quality of the work
is exceptional for under-
graduates; it shows that faculty
at CMU-Q are doing a good job in
mentoring these young minds.
Information Systems, where the
whole mission of the
department is to connect
existing technologies with
business. Another major,
Computer Science with
Business, allows the student to
create new technologies and
then find the business value in
them.
“This is unique. If you go to
the website of SemEval 2014,
you will never see the words
‘brand’ or ‘brand analysis.’
“The focus of the scientists is
to get the work done, rather
than searching for the value to
the business community. At
CMU-Q I am able to keep
myself in the loop of how
business works, so in that sense
it is very helpful to be part of
CMU-Q.”
Additional awards
were presented on
behalf of His
Excellency Saleh
Bin Mohammad
Al Nabit,
Minister of
Development
Planning and
Statistics, by
Dr Barak Yehya, an
expert on institutional
development at the ministry, to
projects closely aligned with the
Qatar National Development
Strategy. Winners were: Fatima
Al Saygh (advisor Jonathan
Finkel); Aniish Sridhar (advisor
John Gasper); Kenrick
Fernandes (advisor Divakaran
Liginlal); Aliya Hashim (advisor
Divakaran Liginlal); and Dania
Abed Rabbou (post-graduate;
advisor Mohammad
Hammoud).
For many of the participants,
the work they presented will
continue. Neyaz and Bin Wasi,
for example, are completing a
research paper based on their
Twitter analysis system, which
they will submit to the next
SemEval conference.
As the students’ ideas work
their way into the world, they
will not only benefit the
students themselves but also,
potentially, help to grow the
knowledge-based economy
Qatar is striving to attain.
Computer science student Rukhsar Neyaz explains her
award-winning project, ‘Twitter Sentiment Analysis.’
Sabih Bin Wasi explains his award-winning project,
‘Twitter Sentiment Analysis,’ at CMU-Q’s 8th annual
‘Meeting of the Minds’ research symposium.
students received
professional
feedback.
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