The British University in Dubai’s 4th Sustainability Summer School came to an end on 11th June 2015, the event was held Under the patronage of HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum. The event attracted a huge number of Bachelors and Masters Students from Universities across the UAE. The weeklong programme was designed to motivate and train students from different subject backgrounds such as Engineering, Computers, Arts and Sciences to think of Sustainability. The BUiD SSS event is highly valued by Prof Abdullah Alshamsi, Vice- Chancellor of The British University in Dubai, who has been working very closely with Dr Hanan Taleb, Assistant Professor at BUiD and Ms Nada Al Banna, Leader of the Team Leaders of BUiD SSS 2015 event. He said, “I am very impressed with the enthusiasm of all the participants this year, they were all very committed to learning the concepts of sustainability and also managed to showcase these learnings through the amazing line up of projects today. It was indeed very hard to pick the winners.”

This year the students were grouped in seven teams each under the group names such as Vitalist, revolutionist, saviours, inventors, reclaimers, environmentalist and the Masters. As this year is the year of innovation for UAE, the Groups were asked to think of Sustainability and Innovation to design sustainable solutions for any of the Economic, Social or Environmental issues facing the world. H.H Sheikh Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, The Green Shiekh was the VIP Guest for the closing ceremony and also one of the judges who judged the project competition along with Prof Abdullah Alshamsi and Prof Bassam Abu Hijleh who is the Dean of Faculty of Engineering & IT. The Green Sheikh delivered a very impressive speech, which was well received by students. He spoke to them about leading by example and having a holistic approach to life .He also encouraged the students to look at the bigger picture to live responsibly and understand that each element of this Universe is linked to the other. In his speech he said, “I am very happy to see all the projects the students have managed to put together in this short time and some of the work is very outstanding. I am happy to be here at The British University in Dubai’s Sustainability Summer School and I can see that this event has managed to bring students from different universities, nationalities and backgrounds for one united goal that is ‘Innovation for a sustainable Future’.

The revolutionist team were announced the winners, their project presented the concept of capturing the mechanical energy and converting it to Electrical Energy. The team basically used a bicycle wheel from scrap which was connected to dynamos which in turn were connected to an LED. The pedaling of the wheel resulted in storing of energy. This electrical energy could then be used to charge of mobile phones, fans and LED lights in the garden etc. Fatima Reaz, Team Leader for the Revolutionist team said that “ I am delighted that our team won the competition and would like to thank BUiD for giving us this opportunity. I had students from Electrical, Mechanical engineering and computer and live sciences and all of us now understand the importance of sustainability and hopefully incorporate this in real life projects.”

Dr Hanan Taleb along with Prof Bassam Abu Hijleh and with help from Professors from other universities and Industry experts such as Phil Dunn, Design Manager, LEED AP, Diamond Developers, Helen Sell, Founder of Customer at Heart, Engineer Khalid Shahail, Chairman of the Arbitration committee at Society of Engineer and many more, it was a good line up of speakers, which provided the students a great learning experience. She said, ‘I would like to thank all of you present here today in making the BUiD SSS 2015 event such a huge success. And I wish you the very best in your life and hope you all will always think sustainability from now on.” She also asked the participants to join the BUiD SSS social Media community, which has the participants of the previous three years actively engaging on sustainability related matters.

The British University in Dubai offers MSc in Sustainable Design of The Built Environment in association with Cardiff University and a PhD in Architecture and Sustainable Design of the Built Environment