The working sessions, organized by the Arab Youth Venture Foundation (AYVF) in partnership with Lockheed Martin, aimed to enhance the students’ practical knowledge of latest innovations in aerospace engineering. They required the Emirati students to deliver a challenging project surrounding technologies to advance space exploration. AYVF is a nonprofit organization which promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the UAE.
“At Lockheed Martin we are committed to advancing local industry and academia through joint ventures, university partnerships and community projects. Our long-standing partnership with the Arab Youth Ventures Foundation, is geared towards empowering the next generation of scientific researchers, engineers, inventors, corporate leaders and entrepreneurs in the region,” said Bob Harward, Chief Executive Lockheed Martin UAE.
The Emirati students toured Lockheed Martin facilities in Florida, where they observed the manufacturing of advanced sensors used on aircraft to detect and track targets. At the company’s new Innovation Demonstration Centre, they experienced next-generation training and logistics in a virtual training environment through a number of immersive civil defense simulations.
The group then headed to Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, where it met with leading engineers and researchers from the Orion program, NASA’s first spacecraft designed for long-duration, human-rated deep space exploration. Scientists and engineers from Lockheed Martin, which is the prime contractor building Orion and their NASA partners were embedded into student teams to develop concept proposals for a project addressing the challenges faced by space exploration programs.
Lisa LaBonte, founder of the AYVF commended UAE sponsor, the Emirates Talent Association, for its selection of 10 students aged 17 to 19 who were among a pool of national winners with top marks in biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics.
Lockheed Martin has more than 300 partnerships in 70 countries with a growing footprint in the UAE and Middle East region.
Lockheed Martin’s Center for Innovation and Security Solutions (CISS) which is located at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, the world’s first graduate-level university dedicated to providing real-world solutions to issues of sustainability, has been established to support the UAE’s emergence as a technology innovator in the region.
Through the CISS and partnerships with organizations such as AYVF, the company is working hand-in-hand with Emirati institutions to support education, research and partnership to help train the next generation of Emirati engineers and scientists.
