A team of master’s students at Waterloo Engineering recently took top prize in a provincial competition to promote and recognize project management skills.
The six students – Taru Agarwal, Diana Jaber, Jithin John Matthews, Rafat Tahboosh, Jing Wu and Alizeh Zaman – were recognized by the Wideman Education Foundation for work they did to help teachers in remote areas of Pakistan.
Members of the winning Waterloo Engineering team pose with organizers of the Wideman Education Foundation project management competition.
As part of a project management course in the winter term, the team worked with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Pakistan to source online educational materials for use by grade 7 teachers in science classes.
Among more than 550 online resources found by the team – one of 10 groups working on related projects in the management sciences course – were games, android apps, videos and tutorials, teacher reference documents, self-assessments and worksheets.
Master’s students in two project management courses taught by lecturer Peter Carr have been working with the Pakistani NGO on a flagship pilot program, Teachers Without Frontiers, for two years.
In all, the 10 teams sourcing online materials in one of those courses this term gathered over 4,000 free resources for teachers.
Teachers Without Frontiers provides teachers with training and guidance in the use of information technology in the classroom.
Open to university and college students, the Wideman competition evaluates projects on how well they incorporate project management principles, skills and execution. The theme was giving back to the community.
In addition to $500, winning team members received passes to a major project management conference in Toronto.