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AMMAN — The current logistic planning unit at the Education Ministry “does not meet the aspirations of a ministry with big importance and tasks”, Minister Omar Razzaz said on Monday.

The lack of logistic planning was witnessed at the beginning of the academic year with overcrowded classrooms and shortages in teachers and furniture, Razzaz was quoted as saying by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, during a meeting with media representatives.

The minister attributed overcrowding of classses to the unexpected number of students who transferred from private schools, especially in Amman, Zarqa and Irbid, noting that the phenomenon has become “confusing” to the ministry. 

AMMAN — World-famous Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli on Monday visited the Baptism Site, in the presence of Tourism Minister Lina Annab. Bocelli expressed his happiness for being at the site, and wished peace for the region, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Annab said that the visit sends a positive message to the entire world and is important in acquainting the world with the religious and historical significance of the site. 

AMMAN — Under directives from His Majesty King Abdullah, a Royal Jordanian Air Force plane on Monday headed to San Martin Island to airlift Jordanians back to the Kingdom, after hurricane Irma hit the island and caused substantial damages. 

The Foreign Ministry has continuously been in touch with Jordanian nationals in US and checked on their condition, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The ministry also followed up on the nationals through communication with the French and Dutch authorities.

The plane headed to the island after obtaining the necessary permissions from the concerned agencies to land on the island.

The hurricane has destroyed 95 per cent of the French part of the island, according to Petra.

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Sunday presented awards to the winners of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Solve Challenge Finals in New York, as part of a working visit to the US with His Majesty King Abdullah, according to a statement from Her Majesty’s office.

Attended by some 300 people, the MIT Solve Challenge Finals called on innovators to develop lasting solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges facing learning, health, sustainability and economic prosperity.

In her role as co-chair of the “Youth, Skills, and the Workforce of the Future” challenge, Queen Rania joined Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop and Atlassian Head of Foundation Mark Reading  in presenting a number of awards to the winners.

Before the ceremony, Queen Rania had a brief meeting with MIT President L. Rafael Reif who has headed the leading technological institute since 2012. 

An initiative of MIT, Solve is a community that brings together technologists, social entrepreneurs, business leaders, policymakers, researchers and other change agents to unearth and implement solutions to specific, actionable challenges, according to the statement. 

In the “Youth, Skills and the Workforce of the Future” challenge, participants focused on building upon the fourth United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG), developing solutions to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. 

Under the challenge, problem-solvers put forward various solutions to equip disadvantaged young people under the age of 24 from low socio-economic backgrounds with the 21st-century-skills needed for them to join the workforce.

AMMAN — A team of two computer science students from the University of Jordan has developed “Bus Bot”, a conversation robot that public transportation users can add on messenger applications such as Facebook to get real time information about bus stop locations and routes after messaging where they want to go. 

The team, consisting of 21-year-old Yanal Tsai and 20-year-old Yousef Arabiat, was awarded the first prize at the Public Transportation Hackathon that took place in Amman last weekend, where over 50 developers gathered to build digital solutions for the public transportation sector. 

The students built on the public transportation advocacy group Maan Nasel’s previous efforts to create the database for the Khutoutna app, known as the first public transit trip-planning app in Amman. 

Hazem Zureiqat, co-organiser of the Hakathon and founding member of Maan Nasel, expressed that “given that this was the first event of its kind in Jordan, I think we were successful in getting young developers to start thinking about public transportation in Jordan and how they can contribute in providing technology-based solutions to problems that people face moving around”, noting that “we even had two groups of school students participate in the Hackathon and provide their own thoughts and ideas.”

In a recent interview with The Jordan Times, Arabiat explained that the team used natural language processing technology to make sense of the user’s request and collect the data from the Khutoutna app, to later deliver the information back to the user in a text. 

“Our aim was to create an easy solution for people to use public transportation,” said Arabiat, explaining that “this way, the user simply has to access his or her typical messenger application and to send a text and receive the routes and the bus stop location — not even having to open the app”.

Furthermore, Tsai added that the technology also includes an app that bus drivers can use to automatically provide information about the route, letting the users know that the bus is on the way.

“To motivate bus drivers and commuters to use the app, we have developed a system where both of them get rewards to use at businesses in the area,” he continued, adding that the team was “trying to run a sustainable business through private partnerships”.

“We attended the Hackathon with the idea that technology is there to serve and motivate people, and, to achieve this purpose, we had to come up with this idea,” he added. 

When asked about the implementation of the “Bus Bot”, Arabiat said that the technology was “real and ready to be applied”, noting that the team will soon start discussing partnerships with private companies to help with the implementation. 

However, the team is aiming to go further. “Maan Nasel provided the infrastructure to build the app for Amman, but we are hoping to develop a solution capable of working in any city,” Tsai said. 

Ali Attari, co-organiser of the Public Transportation Hackathon and coordination and research manager at the Centre for the Study of the Built Environment, told The Jordan Times that the organisation “hopes to collaborate and continue developing” with the team.

Furthermore, Attari noted that the organisation is planning to analyse the 17 projects that were presented, regardless of whether they won or not, to later narrow the selection to a few choices and study their implementation in the next version of the Khutoutna app. 

In this regard, Zureiqat pointed out that “another project gave riders an incentive to provide more data to Maan Nasel’s database, providing them with ‘bus coins’ — virtual or potentially real money — in exchange for tracking their rides using their smartphones”, while other projects “improved on Maan Nasel’s app by adding a comparison feature, allowing commuters to compare the cost of a trip on various modes such as public transport, taxi, or ride-hailing services”. 

AMMAN — In a desert town infamous for its environmental adversities, a public school for girls is hosting a project that has won an international award for setting a strong example in using alternative water resources for irrigation and reusing water for sustainable sanitation.

In Dulail Municipality, some 50 kilometres east of Amman, the schoolgirls spend their midday break sitting in the shade of indigenous trees that are irrigated by the greywater their school generates.

The small system installed in the school’s backyard receives the greywater, treats it and then pumps it to irrigate the garden.

The initiative has won the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance’s (SuSanA) prize held as part of the Stockholm World Water Week 2017 for setting up a learning case and an upscale model throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.

The Rural Family Society (RFS), a newly established NGO based in the Azraq Municipality, installed the system at the school under its Youth Participation in Local Environmental Development in the Eastern Desert Project.

The project entailed training over 70 youth from Dulail and Azraq municipalities, two eastern desert towns with substantial environmental challenges, on environmental advocacy, fundraising, communication, proposal writing, environmental entrepreneurship and networking with environmental institutions, RFS founder, Omar Shoshan, said.

The environmental training targeted youth in Dulail and Azraq which both suffer from environmental problems; they also have great potential for becoming leaders in environmental advocacy, Shoshan said.

Dulail is one of the country’s environmental hotspots since it is home to many industries, qualified industrial zones as well as cattle and poultry farms, while Azraq, 100 kilometres east of Amman, is home to two of Jordan’s renowned nature reserves, Shoshan pointed out.

“Several training workshops were held over the past year for youth of the eastern desert, after which they were divided into groups and requested to come up with projects which they believe can uplift their communities’ environmental awareness and improve living conditions,” Shoshan told The Jordan Times.

The trainees implemented four projects including creating a garden at a school, recycling paper produced at schools, being guide to bird watching in Azraq and installing a greywater treatment system, which has won the SuSanA Sustainable Sanitation Project Prize.

Mohammad Jaber, a participant in the Youth Participation in Local Environmental Development in the Eastern Desert Project, said that the project empowers the young generation to launch grassroots environmental initiatives.

The young man was part of the group which implemented the greywater treatment system at the girls school in Dulail.

“In parallel to installing the system and creating a garden as a breathing space for the girls, our group conducted environmental training for the students on climate change, water scarcity and importance of water reuse and conservation, among other topics,” Jaber told The Jordan Times.

Jaber, who is a lecturer at the Hashemite University’s water and environment management department, said that several schools in Dulail showed keenness on installing a similar greywater treatment system after seeing its functionality and benefits to the school and the students.

In Azraq, a project for recycling paper, cardboard and books produced by schools distributed recycling bins to collect wastepaper.

Mays Bassar, another young participant in RFS’ environmental training programme, said that her group’s initiative aimed at introducing the concept of recycling to school children, reducing the amount of waste reaching landfills, creating job opportunities and highlighting the investment potential of waste.

“We came up with the project because tonnes of paper are generated from schools and taken as waste to landfills when they can become a small investment if managed in a way that protects the elements of nature and also create jobs,” Bassar, an agricultural engineer specialised in water and environment management, told The Jordan Times.

AMMAN — In a move aimed at reaching people from all areas of Jordan and at enriching their educational programmes, the Amman Design Week on Sunday launched the “Mobile MakerSpace 2017”, starting off a trip to several governorates in the Kingdom, the organisers said in a press statement.

This year’s “Mobile MakerSpace” will be similar to last year’s “MakerSpace” version, as an interactive space that brings people together to exchange design-related knowledge, skills and resources.

The mobile educational facility aims to provide school students with the opportunity to learn through interactive sessions in several fields including handicrafts, recycling, sustainable materials, digital manufacturing and robotics.

In addition to providing participants the tools and raw materials to design inventions, the “Mobile MakerSpace” will be the first workshop for technology enthusiasts, craftsmen, engineers, scientists and designers of all ages.

It will run through September 28, visiting schools in the four governorates of Irbid, Zarqa, Mafraq and Karak before settling in the capital for the Amman Design Week held on October 6-14.

“This year’s programme aims to introduce state-of-the-art technologies to public school students, aged between 14 and 17 years-old, across the Kingdom, while organising workshops focusing on recycling and environmental awareness to revive the idea of using the materials that are available around us,” said Haya Bustami, who runs the “Mobile MakerSpace” programme along with Walid Jankhout.

The “Mobile MakerSpace” will enable 500 students to participate in a school programme organised the sponsorship of Art Media, Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation and Zain, as well as the logistical support of INJAZ and the Ministry of Education.

Field trips for public and private schools students are also scheduled to provide 800 youth with the opportunity to explore the Amman Design Week exhibitions in Ras Al Ain and involve them in the design workshops and crafts manufacturing in the “Mobile MakerSpace” exhibition.

This year’s student programme includes the first ever student exhibition at the Ras Al Ain Gallery from October 6-14, which brought together a group of high school and university students working alongside industry professionals and experts in a six-month educational programme.

AMMAN — The King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba is ready to receive all scheduled and charter flights according to the Open Sky policy, airport Director General Bashar Abu Rumman said on Monday.

He said that incidents such as skidding of a plane off course upon landing at the airport a day earlier can happen at any airport and priority is given to public safety and maintaining the airport classification, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

In such cases, aviation should be suspended from and to the airport until investigation on the causes is implemented in coordination with the Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission, among other measures, Abu Rumman noted.

AMMAN — The Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) has won the “most interactive member” award in the international Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), in a ceremony that was held on the sidelines of the 9th Annual Conference of AFI in Cairo, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Monday.

Some 850 participants representing more than 90 countries attended the two-day event that was opened by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi on Thursday, according to a CBJ statement, carried by Petra. CBJ is about to finish drafting the national strategy for financial inclusion, which is scheduled to be launched in December.

AMMAN — HH Prince Mired, chairman of the Hashemite Commission for Disabled Soldiers, on Monday chaired a meeting on Jordan’s participation in the Invictus Games Toronto 2017, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The prince stressed the importance of achievement during the games to enhance Jordan’s presence in the field, calling on the participating players to abide by the rules of sportsmanship. Jordan’s team comprises 17 players, who will compete in many sports including volleyball and swimming.