Third year IT student Maleeha Murad leads Google developer education event and meet-up at Coders HQ
- Thursday, 20 January 2022
On Thursday 6th January 2022, third year BSc Business Information Systems student and UAE Google Developer Student Clubs (GSDC) head Maleeha Murad hosted an educational and networking event for programming enthusiasts at Coders HQ, a transformational project focused on developing the coding community in the UAE that was recently launched by the UAE government.
Student Developer Clubs are university-based community groups for students interested in Google developer technologies. This meet-up was the first in-person GSDC event in two years and saw students from a range of universities come together at Emirates Towers in Dubai for exclusive education delivered by two Google experts, Sebastian Trzcinski-Clément, Senior Program Manager at Google, and Dr. Nabil Hadj-Ahmed, Google Cloud Training Director at Jellyfish.
Trzcinki-Clément delivered an interactive presentation that educated the students in attendance about how they can develop as tech leaders and always be empowered to improve on their craft and keep learning. Dr. Nabil complemented this insightful discussion with a technical training session on the Google Cloud Platform, informed by his extensive experience as a cloud architect.
According to Maleeha, the event not only provided the opportunity for young developers to network with and learn from tech leaders, but it also provided students from different backgrounds who share an interest in Google technologies with the chance to network and develop a sense of community.
“I think my biggest takeaway from the event was the power of community and how it can bring people together and ease people into conversations. It broke away a lot of barriers that we usually put up as human beings before conversing with someone,” Maleeha says. “It allowed me to network and prepare for the event with fellow leads and make some new friends along the way!”
Led by Jaspreet and other CEI faculty, Middlesex was among the first universities in the UAE to join the GSDC initiative at its launch in September 2020, building on the University’s longstanding educational and industry collaboration with Google and other tech sector giants.
Dr Fehmida Hussain, Head of Computer Engineering and Informatics (CEI) at Middlesex, said: “The department of Computer Engineering and Informatics takes great pride in the partnerships and alliances it has with the Information Technology companies here, which enable such initiatives as the GSDC, truly enhancing our students’ learning experience.”
During the first year of the University’s GSDC membership, students benefitted from access to certificate programmes in subjects such as Data Science, Machine Learning, Cloud Engineering, Android Development, alongside access to Google's cloud platform and suite. Many workshops were also organised by Middlesex GSDC members in collaboration with Google to engage the student community in discussions around Information Technology.
Maleeha was nominated by her lecturers and then selected by Google to lead the GSDC for the 2021-2022 academic year, after CEI lecturer Jaspreet Singh Sethi introduced Maleeha to the programme and encouraged her and fellow students to apply. She is the second Middlesex student to lead the club.
“The CEI at Middlesex University Dubai, in its endeavour to enhance student learning and promote industry engagement, has collaborated with industry on many fronts. Maleeha, along with a team of second- and third-year students, have been doing great work in engaging the student body with the initiatives of the GSDC club,” Jaspreet explained.
Reflecting on what she has learnt from her experience leading the GDSC so far, Maleeha said: “I've learned that you don't need to be the best at what you do to be a GDSC lead. It's more about working hard, having resilience and merely showing up that can really set you apart from others.”
Learn more about the UAE Google Student Developer Club here.
