DOHA: The Carnegie Mellon University Qatar is organising a leadership symposium and evening gala as part of its inaugural celebrations on March 9 and ... 

DOHA: The Carnegie Mellon University Qatar is organising a leadership symposium and evening gala as part of its inaugural celebrations on March 9 and 10.

The event hosted by Qatar Foundation will bring together several experts from the reputed Carnegie Mellon University and top business leaders from Qatar.

The leadership symposium will be held at the Diplomatic Club on March 9 involving experts in business and information technology. The speakers, all world leaders in their fields, will share with business leaders in Qatar their latest research and insights in business management and computer science, said a press release yesterday.

The symposium will be followed by an evening gala, on March 10 at the Qatar Foundation premises which will be attended by H H Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, chairperson of the Qatar Foundation, among other dignitaries.

"We hope that by bringing together the best minds in IT and industry under one roof, both on the Carnegie Mellon side and from Doha's leadership base, the knowledge that is shared will create the kind of collaborative, interdisciplinary programming and research centre that is the hallmark of our university," said Charles E Thorpe, dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar.

A musical performance titled "Fanfare for the Future: Celebrating the Vision of Education City" will be presented at the evening gala. The music has been composed especially for Sheikha Mozah by Alan Fletcher, professor and head of Carnegie Mellon's School of Music.

"Qatar is finding its own path toward sustainable development, democracy and the preservation of its cultural integrity," said Sheikha Mozah

"The responsibility we have placed on educational institutions in Qatar is great, because we comprehend that education plays a critical role in engineering the future of our society," she added.

Carnegie Mellon Qatar will announce the donation of a faculty-endowed chair by the Qatar Foundation at the inaugural gala. Endowed chairs are the highest honour a university can bestow on its faculty. The Mozah Bint Nasser Chair of Computer Science and Robotics will be bestowed upon Raj Reddy, the Simon University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, said the release.

The leadership symposium will have two simultaneous sessions titled "Managing in a Global Market" and "Information Technology in education". Both the sessions will begin at 9.30am.

The panel of experts in the first session include R Ravi, professor of Operations Research and Computer Science and director, Center for Analytical Research in Technology (CART), Lester Lave, the Harry B and James H Higgins Professor of Economics and director, Green Design Institute, Sunder Kekre, professor of Operations Management and Manufacturing and director, Center for E-Business Innovation and Duane Seppi, professor of Financial Economics.

The panel of experts at the second session include Randal E Bryant, Dean and University Professor in the School of Computer Science, Raj Reddy, Charles Thorpe, Dean, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Pradeep Khosla, Dean of the Carnegie Institute of Technology and co-founder and co-director of Carnegie Mellon CyLab, Mark Kamlet, Carnegie Mellon Provost, Kenneth R Koedinger, associate professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, School of Computer Science and Joel Smith, vice provost and chief information officer.