On Thursday, August 7^th, 2015, the Branch Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) at An-Najah concluded the Middle East Student Branch Congress MESBC 2015.

The MESBC is a biennial conference that occurs every two years in one of the participating countries and is funded by the International Building Systems Factory Co. LTD. (IBSF) and Astra Industries.

The conference was attended by prominent individuals from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Poland, Britain, Pakistan, Iran and Palestine.

The conference was over four days from August 4th-7th where seminars and workshops on technology, industry and engineering were held. In the fourth day, the Palestinian delegation was given a tour to Al-Berta City.

The conference included speeches by Mr. Tariq Al-Masri, Regional Sales Manager at Astra Industries, Dr. Tamer Al-Khatib, Semua Akar, Director of IEEE-WIE, Region 8, Dr. Ramiz Assaf, Mr. Bashar Hawamdeh, Director of the Board of Directors at INTAJ, Maseg Poruka and Eng. Muhannad Hejawi, General Manager of Spark Company on their professional successful experiences.

Professor Maher Natsheh, Acting President of An-Najah, commended An-Najah students and staff as well as the sponsors of the conference for their efforts and stressed the importance of the MESBC for An-Najah students.

Dr. Khalid Sahli, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and IT at An-Najah said that the faculty offers 17 BA and 7 MA programmes pointing out that 7 engineering programmes were accredited by ABET.

Dr. Mona Ghassemian, representative of IEEE in the Middle East Region 8, said that the IEEE organization will always support students' conferences all over the world.

Eng. Ahmed Awni, Representative of IBSF and Astra Industries mentioned that the company aspires to devote its resources to support the youth as it offers job opportunities for engineers in Palestine and elsewhere.

Student Wadee Suleiman, Chairman of the Preparatory Committee said that the conference aims at exchanging experiences and reinforcing relations among Arab and Foreign countries.

Finally, Eng. Mohammad Dwaikat, IEEE Advisor at An-Najah talked about the IEEE at An-Najah as the first student branch established in Palestine in 2009.

At the end of the conference, each student branch gave a presentation and discussed it with the comity conference where Tunisia branch was elected to hold the coming conference there in 2017.

Notes:

-          The conference was also attended by representatives from the Faculty of Engineering and IT, IEEE members and international and private sector companies in the West Bank as well as a media delegation headed by Mr. Khalid Mufleh, Acting Director of the Public Relations Department at An-Najah.