JEDDAH — Siemens in Saudi Arabia recently held its second Siemens Day@Effat event at Effat University, focusing on how to make the Kingdom cleaner and greener. The Siemens events are innovation workshops that provide a chance for women at the university's engineering department — the Kingdom's first for women — to collaborate and learn from the international corporation. Over 70 students participated in the program, which was built around the theme "How to make the Kingdom cleaner and greener." Students heard about the impact of mega-trends such as climate change, demographic change, urbanization and digitalization, and the opportunities and challenges they present to the world and the Kingdom. Siemen's CEO for Saudi Arabia, Arja Talakar, said the corporation's relationship with the university was important, and that they were keen to work with the university, not only in curriculum development, but also in areas of research, development and innovation. President of Effat University, Haifa Jamal Allail, said that they were very proud of the collaboration with Siemens. "It gives our students a good opportunity to learn and provides them with a valuable experience that will equip them to be leaders in their careers," Allail said. As part of the day, students broke up into teams to identify and present "green" solutions, supported by basic business plans. In the end, "team Eco-switch" emerged as the winners with their waste management solution for households and were rewarded with electronic tablets. Their solution applied a closed-cycle system to manage water and waste. Siemens also partners with the university in several other initiatives. This past summer, Siemens recruited interns from Effat's computer engineering and information technology departments. Next summer's intake will include students from the electrical engineering department.
