QF launches alumni programme to connect its graduates from around world

QATAR Foundation has launched a new programme that will provide the thousands of alumni of its education ecosystem with a pathway for making new connections, sharing experiences and identifying new opportunities, including those which enable them to stay in and return to Qatar, to support the country’s development.

Graduates of Qatar Foundation’s (QF) schools, partner universities and Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) are being invited to join the QF Alumni Programme, which includes a digital space that allows collaborations to be formed, knowledge and information to be exchanged, and bonds formed during their time at Education City to be strengthened.

Over 10,000 people have graduated from QF schools and universities – and been equipped to succeed in the next phase of their lives through the unique educational experience that QF offers.

The QF Alumni Programme aims to be a focal point for creating a global network of QF alumni who retain their links to QF and to Qatar, while helping each other to advance their careers, interests and ambitions.

Many of these alumni, including those currently working abroad, will gather at Education City next week for the first QF Alumni Reunion, as well as a two-day Career Fair that will also be open to QF’s current students.

“Our talented, creative, innovative and highly-driven alumni are the embodiment of what QF’s investment in quality education means, and how our ecosystem of learning and knowledge benefits society in Qatar and beyond,” said Mohammed Fakhroo, executive director of Outreach and Institutional Advancement, QF. “Each of them has a different dream to pursue and a different path to follow. But what unites them all is their shared connection to QF and to each other.”

He added, “The QF Alumni Programme is intended to enable this connection to endure, allowing those who have learned and grown at QF to form networks of knowledge and interaction that help them progress along the path their lives will take; to reconnect and make new connections; and to share their stories and experiences with the goal of supporting each other. This programme also aims to encourage our new alumni to remain in Qatar after they graduate from QF and those who have graduated in previous years to return to the country, so that Qatar both retains and welcomes back the talent it has contributed to nurturing.

QF alumna Dr Noora Hadi Al Shahwani graduated from QF partner university Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) in 2011 and, having subsequently worked in Canada, has now returned to Qatar to join the paediatric surgery team at QF member Sidra Medicine.

“I feel proud to be a QF graduate and to belong to such a community,” she said. “QF has evolved so much as a community of students. You can see WCM-Q students making friends with students of other

QF partner universities, and these friendships last a lifetime. The Alumni Reunion event will take people back to a very special time in their lives and strengthen their friendships once more.”

Mohammed Al Matwi, a Class of 2015 alumnus of QF partner university Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and founder and CEO of The Perfume Factory – a business he adapted in 2020 to help Qatar tackle the COVID-19 pandemic – said: “QF students have a long history together and they share a great deal of passion and nostalgia for the place where this history was made. We need to stay connected, to see where all of us have reached in our lives. This reunion event will be like reviving the memory of being a student, but from an adult perspective.”

Through the QF Alumni App – which all graduates of QF, its partner universities and HBKU can register for – alumni will be able to connect and reconnect with each other, form mutual interest groups, find and apply for jobs, and provide guidance to younger graduates through a short mentorship programme that promotes experience-sharing.

The QF Alumni Reunion will take place at Al Shaqab on Sunday, May 15.

Meanwhile, the Career Fair will take place on May 15 and 16, allowing QF alumni and current students to identify ways of advancing their career by exploring full-time, part-time, internship, and training opportunities with leading organisations.

Full details, including how to register, can be found at www. alumni.qf.org.qa.