TO celebrate International Woman’s Day this week, Student World Online looks at the inspiring stories of some remarkable female students and academics.
Qatar University auto engineers
This all-woman student team outshone university squads from across the Arabian peninsula last month to triumph in a competition to design, build and race a hybrid electric car.
Team Gernas 114, from Qatar University, won the first-ever TAQA GCC Hybrid-Electric Challenge held in Abu Dhabi.
The teams were given five months to design and construct a single-seater lightweight electric car and hybrid electric-petrol car to stringent race design and safety rules. On race day, they had to drive the vehicles as far as possible in one hour, using only the energy stored in their batteries.
Team Gernas 114, completed 101 laps on the final day of racing, beating teams from schools such as the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, UAE University, and the Nizwa College of Technology.
Football referee Chahida Sekkafi
Student Chahida Sekkafi made history last month when she became Italy’s first ever football referee to wear the Islamic veil.
The 16-year-old Italian officiated a championship game between two junior male teams, San Luigi and Karimou Stradevar, in Lombardy in the north of Italy.
Watching her debut with her proud parents; Chahida’s mother played professional football in Morocco.
Olympic skier Maddie Bowman
American skier Maddie Bowman is celebrating after winning gold in the first ever women’s ski halfpipe event at last month’s Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The 20-year-old wowed the judges with a series of spins and tricks in the exhilarating extreme sport.
Bowman is a student at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, an institution that produced 10 per cent of the athletes taking part in this year’s Winter Olympics.
University of Manitoba computer scientists
FOR the first time in its 11-year history the international CS (computer science) Games will have an all-female team this month.
A squad of 10 female computer science majors from the University of Manitoba in Canada will be up against against teams from across North America in the contest, held in Montreal.
Female students make up less than 10 per cent of Manitoba University computer science program and recent Statistics Canada figures show even women who score high in math and science in high school are shying away from careers in those fields.
