Tishk International University’s 6th National Innovation Competition in Engineering (NICE2021) was held on Wednesday, May 19, 2021, under the theme of “Targeting Smart Sustainable Innovations.”
The aim of the competition is to gather students, supervisors, practitioners, educators, students of Architecture Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Interior Design, Mechatronic Engineering, Petroleum and mining Engineering and Surveying and Geomantic Engineering with interests in smart sustainable innovations at all levels from around universities of Kurdistan region and Iraq. Invitations were sent to universities in Kurdistan region of Iraq and other universities. Online registration forms were set-up for each category and were closed on 10th of May to give the students the chance to finalize their projects’ abstracts and ideas. The forms were later on processed by the head of departments and acceptance / rejection emails were sent to all participants three days ahead of the competition.
This year’s edition has witnessed the participation of 146 projects among its seven categories with more than 240 students, along with the precious participation of more than 70 jury members and the participation of 10 different universities from Kurdistan and Iraq. The rate of participation from those 10 universities is listed below:
- Tishik international university 118
- Cihan university 10
- Koya University 8
- Salahaddin university 1
- Erbil Polytechnic University 4
- University of Raparin 2
- Lebanese French University 1
- Erbil Technology College 1
- Kongu Engineering College 3
- Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology 3
Moreover 6 international projects have participated from two different universities abroad and they have been evaluated using virtual meeting by a special jury committee from Mechatronics department
Kongu Engineering College 3 projects (9 students)
Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology 3 projects (9students)
Table below shows a full description of the total number of projects from the seven participating categories:
Table below shows the rate of participation of registered jury members of an academic background along and others well known from industry:
The event started at 08:30 AM where the participating students as well as evaluating jury members were directed to the registration desks located in the main building entrance to receive their badges, lunch cards, program flow and assigned codes for their stands.
Jury members were later invited to the coordination hall to receive their evaluation forms along with gift packs as a sign of appreciation to their valuable effort in participating in the event. Few instructions were also given by Dr. Halit Vural, NICE 2021 chair to the jury members to further clarify the evaluation process criteria.
Project evaluation process started at 10:00 AM, with the students’ project demonstrations presented to evaluation jury members. All the participating projects were evaluated according to the following criteria: Project invention ingenuity, scientific approach, clarity and thoroughness in explaining the project idea, competency, technical skills and effort put into finishing the project.
The evaluation process was followed by the opening ceremony, which started at 11:00 AM with Dr. Abdul Samad Salahuddin Ahmad President of Tishk International University’s welcome speech, in which he thanked all the participating students, guests and jury members and signified the university’s ongoing commitment to further support the development the engineering field with more sustainable and innovative projects from its students.
Following the speech, event sponsors received a “Thank you” plagues from Dr. Abdul Samad Salahuddin Ahmad in recognition of the immense support, effort, and contribution that the sponsors have generously provided in making the competition possible.
This was followed by an address speech from Dr. Halit Vural, the acting chair of NICE2021 and dean of Engineering faculty in which he mentioned the main aim, mission and vision of the competition, the participating categories and the approximate number of participating students and projects and thanked all contributing parts for their valuable support for the competition specifically and scientific activities as a whole.
After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the project demonstration as well as the evaluation process were continued until lunch break. Afterwards, the jury members handed their evaluation forms to the organizing committee staff responsible for determining the winners. The overall scores of each jury given to specific project were averaged and the score-tied projects were evaluated according to a specific formula which can determine the rank.
NICE2021 was concluded with the closing ceremony that took place at the main building entrance at 4:00 PM in which Dr. Ezaddin Hasso Head of mechatronics Engineering department gave a closing speech where he thanked all the participants for the dedication and effort they have put into making their projects and in turn making the event a great success. Later on, the top 3 winners of all seven participating categories and International winners were announced and were awarded with gold, silver, and bronze medals and prize money as well as certificates by the two vice presidents of TIU Dr. Mehmet Ozdemir and Dr. Wasfi Tahir Saalih.
