IShuttle portal for space enthusiasts
ABU DHABI — The UAE Space Agency has launched a new online portal, iShuttle, designed to engage with and drive interest in space among students, teachers and the wider public.
iShuttle will thus allow residents of all walks of life to contribute to the nation’s ambitious National Space Programme by submitting their ideas and solutions to the UAE Space Agency, solving complex problems and designing unique experiments.
The challenges will vary in length and complexity, and while team-work and group submissions are encouraged, individual proposals will be accepted as well.
Expert panels composed of university faculty and representatives from the UAE Space Agency will be formed for each challenge and will select the winning submissions. On the sidelines of the announcement, Dr Mohammed Al Ahbabi, director-general of the UAE Space Agency, told Khaleej
Times the platform will not only inspire young innovators to enter the space sector, but also foster creativity, collaboration and critical thinking.
“This initiative will attract bright ideas and solutions on how to solve challenges in space.”
“These bright ideas will be evaluated by the UAE Space Agency, before being implemented and launched.”
The first challenge, which involves a concept experiment for a balloon mission, already went live on Tuesday.
“This initiative opens doors to find talented people. There are so many, but we just don’t know where they are.”
Dr Al Ahbabi said he hopes to see many more students like Alia Al Mansouri, the 15-year-old Emirati winner of the ‘Genes in Space UAE’ competition, whose science experiment launched into space in August last year.
“We are trying to open the door for so many Alias and I’m sure there are so many bright students, but they are hiding. We are just trying to bring them out.”
Dr Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Minister of State for Higher Education and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency, said that inspiring young generations is the idea behind the new platform.
“Encouraging students to enter STEM fields is a key goal of the UAE Space Agency and a priority of the UAE Vision 2021, to ensure that the UAE develops the human capital necessary to create a world-leading knowledge economy.”