In a laboratory at the University of Vienna, Austria, young Syrian engineer Yahya Al-Khalidi, along with a team of dozens of researchers, is carrying out scientific and technical testing operations on the spacecraft scheduled to be launched at the beginning of 2024.
In 2019, Al-Khalidi was awarded the Tech Challenge award by the Graz University of Technology in Austria.
Al-Khalidi, born in Aleppo in 1989, had had an inclination toward innovation and technology since his childhood. After fleeing the war to Jordan, he studied electronics engineering at the Isra University and received a computer maintenance diploma from the Arab Community College.
In 2016, he won second place at the innovation fair for best innovative project, creating a “smart street” that uses solar energy to power streetlights, which turn on automatically. He then obtained a grant of ten thousand dollars funded by the EU to put his ideas into practice.
Soon after obtaining asylum in Austria under the resettlement program, Al-Khalidi was invited to attend an international conference in Vienna, during which he received an invitation from Graz University for Challenge and Technology to participate in an international competition for AVL, a company specialized in testing cars before they are put into production.
Al-Khalidi won another competition for ANDRITZ, a company that manufactures high-tech production systems, for resolving an issue in their fastest paper machine, using the Internet of Things (IoT) technology through readings he received from sensors placed throughout the machine.
However, his innovation is not limited to paper production lines, but can be applied to any fast industrial production line. ANDRITZ has applied his solution on other systems and registered it in Yahya’s name in the technical center of the University of Graz.
The University of Vienna offered him a scholarship to complete a master's degree in engineering, specializing in electronics and satellite communications, with a monthly salary, and, according to him, he is expected to sign a work contract in the company starting 2022.
Al-Khalidi pointed out that his work as part of a team designing a satellite that will be launched in 2024 at the Technical Center is not only theoretical but is being applied and supervised by several doctors, engineers, and technicians, as well as several European universities and the European Space Agency.
The project was approved three months ago and includes 24 researchers with whom he is developing the electronic parts of the spacecraft.
According to Al-Khalidi, thousands of young Syrian refugees in European countries with bright minds and ideas need the right environment to encourage their innovation, which is unfortunately lacking in Arab countries but available in Western and European Countries.
However, based on his experience and observation of Syrian youth and Arabs in Europe, Al-Khalidi believes that most of them lack the ambition to achieve their potential.
(Zaman Al Wasl)
Zaman Al Wasl
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