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For the second-year running, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) hosted the Qatar edition of Invent for the Planet (IFTP), a 48-hour intensive design experience hackathon that brings together students from universities worldwide to solve pressing, high-impact global challenges.
Organized by HBKU’s Student Enrichment Program, the local phase also attracted entries from Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ), Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ), Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar, and the University of Doha for Science and Technology. Over the course of two days, 45 students across 8 teams conceptualized and developed innovative solutions around this year’s theme “Reimagining Food Systems for a Resilient Planet.” Teams also consisted of participants from 16 different graduate and undergraduate majors, making it the most multidisciplinary round to date.
A panel of judges from HBKU and its Office of Innovation and Industrial Relations, TAMUQ, Shell Qatar, and Wood PLC made the following awards:
1st Place and Best Prototyping Award: Harvest Shield. A team consisting of HBKU and TAMUQ students tackled damage to food produce during transportation by developing a shock-absorbing, waterproof, stackable high-density polyethylene transport crate with a hexagonal lattice design that reduces impact force by 35–45%.
2nd Place, Best Presentation and Video Award: CropCore. An affordable soil probe with sensors, this UDST-TAMUQ technology measures soil porosity at multiple depths and is paired with a software dashboard that provides visual insights and actionable recommendations to improve farming practices.
3rd Place: PocketLab. Developed by students from CMUQ and TAMUQ, PocketLab is a handheld, affordable leaf-clip device for measuring chlorophyll, nitrogen status, water content, and salt stress in 3 seconds - giving farmers instant actionable data to optimize fertilizer use and increase profits.
“A safe, secure, and resilient food supply chain is a precious global commodity,” commented Dr. Ala Al-Fuqaha, Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning, HBKU. “The theme of this year’s IFTP reflects this as do the innovative solutions developed by the teams in the Qatar edition. Every participant is to be commended for the energy and enthusiasm that they brought to the hackathon, as well as every success in applying their ideas where they will be needed most.”
Devised by the Meloy Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at Texas A&M University (TAMU), IFTP promotes innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship among diverse student teams through structured problem-solving and collaboration. Since its inception in 2018, the initiative has engaged with over 50 academic institutions across 30 countries.