Patrick Daou, a graduate student at the Department of Civil Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Balamand has received the 2020 ESRI Young Scholars Award. The award celebrates excellence in geospatial sciences recognizing exemplary work of current undergraduate and graduate students using geospatial technologies at international universities. Patrick is one of 27 recipients of the 2020 award worldwide, the only one from Lebanon and one of three in the MENA Region. Patrick’s submission involved deep, insightful spatial analysis using ERSI GIS software to perform flood hazard mapping of el-Kalb River under the co-supervision of Dr. Amal Iaaly and Dr. Marianne Saba.

As a leading location intelligence platform, ESRI empowers visionary leaders with innovative tools to help create sustainable prosperity. Esri's customers drive digital transformation by embracing the power of location. The GIS Center at the University of Balamand has been innovative in the use of the ESRI software solutions to empower its research, training, projects, and most recently online assessment. This stems from a long history of cooperation with ESRI Lebanon that dates back to 2000.

Created by ESRI Founder and President Jack Dangermond, and coordinated by ESRI’s international distributors and educational teams, the ESRI Young Scholars Award program was launched in 2012, and winners are honored each year at the ESRI User Conference, which is normally held at USA. The winners of this award are selected by an academic panel formed by ESRI’s distributor in the recipient’s respective country based on creativity and/or innovation, real-world relevance, application of ESRI technology, and technical merit. This year, 27 young scholars were awarded from 6 continents.

Patrick is the second student from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Balamand to receive this prestigious award in the GIS field. Nael Hassanieh won the ESRI Young Scholars Award back in 2017 under the supervision of Dr Amal Iaaly.

Vice President for Internationalization and Engagement and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Professor Rami Abboud received Patrick and the GIS Team upon the announcement of the award results. Prof Abboud commended this marvelous achievement that is yet another accolade added to the exemplary record of awards received by the GIS Center at the Faculty of Engineering and stated: “Patrick is a model graduate that brings together innovation, skill, and dedication with an unrelenting wish to serve the community and the University of Balamand. This is an outstanding achievement for the GIS Centre to win this award twice since the award’s inception 8 years ago. It highlights the high caliber of research and supervision undertaken by our students and faculty members”. Patrick is now an integral part of the GIS Team at the Faculty of Engineering and has already left a great mark with the many recent GIS developments in the novel Apps of Salamati, Hayati and Oumniyati.

باتريك ضو يحصل على جائزة ESRI Young Scholars لعام 2020