Yarmouk Faculty of Education organized a conference entitled “Education and Sustainability Development: Entrepreneurship and Innovation” under the sponsorship of the University president, Professor Islam Massad. At the beginning of the conference, which lasted for two days, Massad welcomed the audience to the event explaining that such a serious gathering aims at integrating university education and scientific developments to enhance students’ aspiration and achieve sustainability. Massad stated that the conference focuses on important issues related to education, sustainability, and innovation concerning the skills and psychological health required for promoting education, among many other issues. He further focused on the importance of education as a tool for development referring to COVID-19 crisis that affected education worldwide. He also called for integrating both education and sustainability and for providing an interactive environment, which requires a shift from education to learning. Finally, Massad thanked all participants and organizers of the conference calling for a positive participation and applicable recommendations.

The dean of the Faculty of Education, Dr. Nawwaf Shatnawi, welcomed the audience to the conference which aims at discussing how to develop education and achieve sustainable development. He called for transforming the challenges into opportunities of innovation, referring to the fact that students no longer need certificates alone, but skills, entrepreneurship, and leadership. He finally thanked the presidency for supporting the event and acknowledged the efforts of the staff of the Faculty of Education as well as other local and global agencies to organize such event.

Dr. Asma Husein from Princess Nora University at Saudi Arabia presented a speech on behalf of the participants, thanking Yarmouk University and the Faculty of Education for their support of the conference and interest in such issues. However, the opening session of the conference included the president’s honoring of retired members of the faculty staff as well as local and global agencies who supported the faculty of education and the university.

Participating in a competition that included twenty projects introduced by over 16 countries, including Canada, Italy, Romania, Georgia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey, the pioneering project of the Faculty of Information Technology and Computer Science at Yarmouk University entitled “Using Virtual Reality to develop a computerized educational curriculum for pre-school children with special needs” won the first place for being the best promising applied pilot project in the International Academic Cultural Forum (ICAMES'22) for Engineering students, which was held in Istanbul between 10-16/05/2022. The student Sohaib Al-Abed represented the project team in this international competition, noting that the project team included, besides Sohaib, the student Maysam Al-Akash, and that the team was supervised by Dr. Rami Malkawi and Dr. Ahmed Saifan.

Supported by the US Embassy and in partnership with the American International Institute of Technology “MIT”, the second phase of the digital transformation project entitled as “Leadership and Innovation in the Era of Digital Transformation” was concluded at Yarmouk University in the presence of a group of local community leaders including educational and non-educational directors and academics from different governmental and private institutions. The project team consisted of Dr. Mustafa Bani Khalaf, as a principal researcher, and Dr. Khaled Nawasra, who both acknowledged the efforts made by the Director of the Department of International Relations and Projects, Dean of al-Hijjawi Faculty of Technological Engineering, Dr. Mowaffaq Al-Atoum, to complete the project.

It is noteworthy that the project focuses on identifying expertise, skills, and the latest findings of science in the world of digital transformation to train and refine the digital skills of leaders, decision-makers, university students, and school teachers so that they can keep pace with the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions. Thus, the third and final phase of the project aim to train 40 university students on future jobs in the era of digital transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. However, celebrating this achievement, the University President’s Advisor for Quality Affairs, Director of Accreditation and Quality Assurance Center, Dr. Abdullah Al-Khataiba, patronized the graduation ceremony of the participants in the second phase workshop and handed them participation certificates at the end of the workshop.

In the presence of the Indonesian Ambassador to Amman, Dr. Adi Padmo Sarwano, the Nigerian Ambassador to Amman, Omar Kamphalt, the Consul at the Thai Embassy in Amman, Girat Furado, the Moroccan Cultural Adviser, Muhammad Barawi, the Bahraini Cultural Adviser, Dr. Nada Al Harban, the Saudi Cultural Attaché, Dr. Issa Al-Rumaih, the Yemeni Cultural Attaché, Dr. Qibla Al-Saeed, and the Director of the Malaysian Attaché, Radwan Abdul Rashid, the Arab and International Communities exhibition organized by Yarmouk University started in front of the university presidency building with a march of flags of the countries whose students are participating in the event.

The President of the University, Professor Islam Massad, inaugurated the exhibition, which reflects the university’s interest in organizing international activities and events, and its cultural and civilizational diversity, considering that the university includes 3,643 international students representing 47 countries around the world. As explained by the Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Muhammad Thiabat, the exhibition reflects a distinctive cultural painting, where 16 communities of international students studying at the university are participating in the exhibition by presenting their own local shows, foods, artistic and heritage paintings. Thiabat called on the university students from various faculties to get involved in the several extracurricular activities organized by the Deanship of Student Affairs to represent their countries and cultivate their personalities.

Discussing possible ways of cooperation in the field of conducting applied scientific research, the President of Yarmouk University, Professor Islam Massad, met with a delegation from the German Research Foundation DFG, which included the Director of the International Cooperation Department, Dr. Jörg Schneider, and Dr. Jennifer Gronau from the International Cooperation Department at the Foundation. Massad stressed Yarmouk's keenness to consolidate its cooperation with the German Research Foundation DFG, which is concerned with conducting joint scientific research in applied sciences between researchers from different countries around the world.

In return, the delegation members affirmed the Foundation's endeavor to attract distinguished researchers to participate in conducting scientific research in the field of applied sciences, praising the distinguished level of scientific research conducted by the faculty members of Yarmouk. They also explained that DFG is a German institution that supports research in the fields of science, engineering, and humanities through a large variety of grant and award programs, infrastructure financing, and seeks to encourage international cooperation concerning applied scientific research programs.