MIT Technology Review Arabia Announces Winners Of “Innovators Under 35 MENA"

MIT Technology Review Arabia, a Majarra platform, announced the winners of the fifth edition of the “Innovators Under 35 MENA” (IU35) Award, which aims to honor leading innovators with outstanding technical expertise whose inventions or research promises to change the way people live for the better, and make a quantum leap around the world.

This year there was an unprecedented number of nominees with diverse innovations in technology, biotechnology, computer science, medicine, materials science, etc.

Winners of IU35 2022 edition

With the help of a committee of 22 distinguished and independent judges, including technical experts, entrepreneurs and academics associated with research centers, leading technology companies and prestigious universities worldwide, MIT Technology Review Arabia selected 15 innovators for the IU35. fifth edition as follows:

Ahmad Alabdulkareem, Saudi, Chief Technology Officer, Intelmatics Corporation, used his long experience in AI and advanced analytics to develop new decision intelligence algorithms that can not only enhance and improve decision making, but even recommend decisions in many situations (resulting in a kind of “autopilot” mode for decision makers ).
Tasneem Al Harahsheah, Jordanian researcher in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, innovated NANOAPTA, a fast, portable and easy-to-use point-of-care device for breast cancer early diagnosis to help women perform the parodic examinations.
Zahin Rohan Razeen, Bangladesh UAE Resident, Founder and CEO of Hydroquo+, Inc., A Hydro-Informatics R&D startup dedicated to ensuring water security using the Industrial Internet of Things. Hydroquo+ combines spectral sensing technology with a software package that instantly transmits laboratory test results via a mobile interface that can be monitored from anywhere.
Asmaa Abdallah, Lebanese KSA resident, a postdoctoral fellow at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) machine learning applied to wireless systems, especially those that rely on reflective surfaces, to rapidly expand wireless systems while reducing costs, increasing the potential for expanding network coverage in areas with connectivity problems. This new contribution is expected to have a significant impact in supporting the deployment of sixth generation wireless systems.
Alaa Alahmadi, Saudi Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Taibah University, An AI system innovated to achieve reliable automation of prolonged QT interval detection, thereby facilitating the interpretation of ECG signals in a logically explainable way, which would lead to early detection of sudden death risk and save thousands of lives.
Wedyan Babatain, Saudi Postdoctoral Fellow at KAUST, developed a new, multifunctional and wearable platform using graphene and liquid metal materials. It enables wireless monitoring of movement patterns, temperature, humidity, respiration and other health indicators. It also allows real-time monitoring of leg robots.
Mohammed Shaaban, an Egyptian Ph.D. candidate at the State University of New York obtain high-resolution snapshots of the moment of actin nucleation, as actin nucleation and polymerization are involved in many physiological and pathological conditions, such as cell migration, sperm nuclear migration, tunneling of nanotubes, host-pathogen interactions and cancer metastasis, among others. His innovation will help basic and therapeutic research to answer more complex and pathological questions related to the actin cycle.
Asma Al-Amoodi, a Yemeni Ph.D. candidate at KAUST, developed the use of hematopoietic stem cells to treat blood diseases, including leukemia. Her innovation is significant in the development of our medical and biological sciences knowledge and prevention of recurrence of leukemia in humans.
Hilda Ghadieh, a Lebanese assistant professor at the University of Balamand, has conducted substantial research elucidating the underlying pathogen mechanisms leading to NAFLD and is seeking to introduce a drug specifically designed to alleviate NAFLD approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Ayoub Glia, a Moroccan UAE resident and postdoctoral fellow at New York University Abu Dhabi developed a technology that provides an innovative method to cryopreserve mammalian cells on paper without sacrificing their quality. His method is cost-effective (it is based on ordinary filter paper), space-saving, simple and easy to manage. The innovation aims to restructure preclinical testing processes by providing a more reliable tumor model for direct uses in the future.
Jehad El-Demellawi, an Egyptian KSA resident and postdoctoral fellow at KAUST, develop new nanomaterials with tunable functionalities that are less expensive (abundant) and easily processed, but not at the cost of lower performance than expensive standard materials such as silver that are widely used in solar cells. Such a cost reduction will significantly impact the deployment of such technology, especially in the year-long bright MENA region.
Fahd Al Qureshah, a Saudi assistant research professor at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), and a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, identified a previously unrecognized function of PI3Kδ enzyme in plasma cells (PC) homeostasis. This discovery provides a powerful tool for manipulating plasma cells, which have been the subject of intensive research for decades because of their wide applications, ranging from autoimmune and malignant diseases to the production of vaccines and antibodies.
David Guirguis, an Egyptian research assistant, and Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, created a way to improve the 3D printing process of metal alloys by using artificial intelligence to improve quality and reliability. He founded his start-up, Consistency, which specializes in 3D printing metals for use in the aerospace sector.
Ghada Alhussein, a Syrian UAE resident and Assistant Professor of Khalifa University of Science and Technology, OsteoMentor, an end-to-end smart ecosystem, created to help people with osteoporosis (or at risk of developing it) manage their health care. In addition, this system relies on a novel approach to assess the benefits of emotional climate in natural dialogue. By using emotional state with all other patients’ medical data, and suggesting better healthcare plans, the app can provide more personalized healthcare support on an individual level to patients outside the clinic.
Dahlia Mohamed Hassan, an Egyptian biomedical engineer at Khalifa University, created Bloom, a safe, affordable and self-adjusting design for prosthetic legs. The design is made from recyclable materials and costs less than $20 to provide a one-size-fits-all solution so amputees in war-torn countries can adjust their limbs to fit them instead of traveling to hard-to-reach clinics.

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About IU35 grant

MIT Technology Review Arabia has been organizing the MENA IU35 Award annually since 2018. It is the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) edition of the global award launched in 1999 by MIT Technology Review and including international figures have, like Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.

The IU35 Award from MIT Technology Review is a list of the world’s most prominent and essential innovators under the age of thirty-five. It aims to honor a group of young innovators, male and female, who have presented the most exciting and interesting inventions and studies.

The IU35 Award includes the brightest minds, technical experts, male and female researchers, scientists and scholars. Since its inception in 2018, 55 innovators from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Kuwait, Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Turkey and the United States have won the award . It is noteworthy that three of the winners of the IU35 MENA Award in 2019 won its global edition in 2020, namely Ghena Al-Hanaee (UAE), Omar Abu Dayeh (Palestine) and Mohamed Dhaouafi.