Crown Prince Foundation announces acceptance of four students to NASA

The Crown Prince Foundation (CPF) announced the acceptance of four new students to its NASA internship program.

Mohammad Alsalti from University of Jordan, Muhy Eddin Za’ter from Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Abdelrahman Budair from German Jordanian University and Maha Alafeef from Jordan University of Science and Technology were the four students to gain admission to NASA’s internship program and join the ranks of Jordan’s NASA interns, the foundation said in a statement.

It said the Kingdom is proud to now have 12 of its brightest engineering students partake in the program.

This internship opportunity stems from Jordan’s signed agreement with NASA in 2014 in cooperation with the Crown Prince Foundation’s NASA initiative. The accord makes Jordan the first Arab country to have signed such an agreement with NASA, and one of the first ten countries in the world, it said.

The NASA initiative opens doors for university students from the Kingdom’s engineering programs to advance their training at NASA’s Ames Research Center in the United States for eight weeks. The all-expenses-paid program, including tuition fees and daily expenses, allows students to focus solely on developing their talents in aerospace engineering and other fields in applied space sciences, according to the statement.

“This internship provides an exceptional opportunity for Jordan’s youth, and would not be possible without the support of His Royal Highness Prince Al Hussein Bin Abdullah II”, said Crown Prince Foundation CEO Omar Massarweh.

“His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is always eager to provide unique opportunities for Jordanian youth to gain practical and educational experiences through the world’s top-tier platforms. We are very proud of Jordan’s admitted students and hope that this experience will provide them with outstanding opportunities to develop their professional and academic careers”, he said.

“At the Crown Prince Foundation, we check on students’ progress during their internship, and upon their return we tour with them universities around the Kingdom so they may impart their newly gained knowledge to their peers”, said Massarweh

Students who apply to the distinguished internship must have completed an engineering project while completing the fourth or fifth year of their studies at a Jordanian university, according to the foundation.

They must hold a cumulative average of 90% or higher and obtain letters of recommendation from their professors. Applications must include a detailed explanation of their graduation project and its stages of implementation. During the internship, students are assigned new projects based on their educational background and qualifications under the supervision of a NASA mentor and according to the guidelines proposed in their applications, it said.

CPF said it is committed to bringing creative young minds together to participate in this internship. The Foundation asks the deans of Jordanian universities’ engineering faculties to present the three most innovative engineering projects from their students. Students whose projects meet NASA’s standards submit applications for the Foundation to review according to the administration’s guidelines. The Foundation selects 2 – 4 students to submit their projects based on NASA’s current projects, it added.

Jordan’s first group of NASA interns initiated the Masar initiative, which aims to launch the first JY1-SAT satellite in memory of His Majesty the late King Hussein Bin Talal the first founder of the HAM Radio in Jordan and holder of call sign JY1.