Meet FIRST Global Team Egypt; a team of 5 Egyptian high school students who are so eager to make this world a better place through STEM. They competed in more than 10 robotics competitions; national and international ones. This year, these 5 young pharaohs have been selected because of their outstanding achievements in robotics in their young age, to represent Egypt in the 2019 FIRST Global Challenge, which will be held in Dubai. They have started building and testing their robot and are so excited to take place in the Ocean Opportunities challenge and compete with their robot. They believe that STEM is the future and they are so thrilled to put STEM in action to try and solve major global challenges.

Abdelrahman Elshabiny is a 15 year old high school student. He has been participating in Robotics competitions since 2014. He first participated in FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) 2014 in which he won the “Inspiration Award”. Then he joined the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in the same year. That competition was very important for him as it boosted his designing and programming skills. After that, he decided to try something different than LEGO kits so he decided to participate in VEX IQ competition 2015. That competition helped him develop his teamwork skills and he participated again in VEX IQ for another 2 years and in the third one he won the “Best Design Award”.  In 2016, he joined RobocupJunior Cospace where his team won 1st place, which qualified him to the international event in Nagoya, Japan in which he won 6th place. Then he decided to try a different type of competitions and went for the ROV and he won 3rd place. He rejoined the RobocupJunior competition but he chose to enter the Onstage category in which he won 2nd place in 2019.

Habiba Elemary is a 14 year old girl who loves reading and arts. She has been playing guitar for 2 years now. She loves robotics because it helped her learn how to cooperate with others, improve her social interaction skills, better regulate emotions, and learn the ups and downs of competing. She hopes to become an engineer when she grows up. She has participated in a lot of competitions such as FLL 2011-2012, VEX 2013-2014, VEX 2014-2015 and won the “STEM Award” for elementary stage that year, VEX 2015-2016. She won the Robogames nationals Sumo Category 2017 and was among the team in Robogames international that was held in Pleasanton, San Francisco 2017. She volunteered as a referee for the VEX Nationals 2018-2019.

Hana Elbana is 14 years old, she’s in S.I.S school in the 9th grade. She likes art, loves listening to music and enjoys reading books so much. Hana has participated in VEX IQ 2014-2015, won the “STEM Award” for elementary stage,VEX IQ 2015-2016. She won the Robogames national competition Sumo Category 2017, which qualified her to represent Egypt in the international competition in San Francisco 2017. She once again competed in Robogames Tube Push category in 2018-2019 and Robocup Cospace category in 2018. She has also participated in volunteering in VEX IQ national 2018-2019

Mamdouh Elsherif lives in Alexandria, Egypt and he is a student in “ZAS”. He started robotics and programming in 2010. He participated in 2015 VEX Egypt competition and traveled to the USA to participate in VEX Worlds in 2016. He also participated in VEX EGYPT in 2016/2017 and won “Best Presentation”. In 2017/2018 he won “Best Design” when he attended VEX robotics competition. He also won “Best Performance” in Robocup Egypt Cospace category in 2017. He travelled to Nagoya, Japan to participate in Robocup International and won 6th place. He also won 3rd place in Ranger class in ROV competition in 2018. He participated in 2018 in Robogames Egypt Sumo robot. He also joined EOI competition in 2018 and Robocup Onstage category in 2019 where his team won 2nd place.

Tarek Elsherif was born in Alexandria, Egypt and goes too Sakr immersion school. He is a member in the Taekwondo national team of Egypt. He is a 14 year old who loves robotics; he joined 14 national and international competitions. In 2014, he joined his first competition; FLL competition and won “Best Design Award”. He entered WRO for the first time in 2014. In 2015, he joined WRO and VEX IQ, he won First place in VEX IQ and traveled with his team to America to represent his country in VEX Worlds. In 2016, he joined VEX IQ again and won fourth place and he also participated in WRO again. He won the 1st place in RoboCupJunior competition Cospace category in 2017 and traveled to the international competition in Nagoya, Japan where his team ranked 6th in the world. In 2017, he entered VEX IQ for the last time as a player. In 2019, he participated as a volunteer in VEX IQ competition.Also in 2018, he competed in RoboCupJunior Cospace category again. He also joined Robogames Tube push category competition and EOI C++ programming competition. He learnt Python language and Godot, which is an app for creating video games. In September 2019, he entered EOI C++ language competition.

Sondos Omar is a Mechatronics Engineer who recently graduated from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Alexandria, Egypt. She works as a robotics instructor at Young Leaders Academy, a STEM learning establishment for kids of ages 4-17. She has been teaching robotics since 2010. Sondos has been the Chair of the RoboCupJunior Egypt OnStage TC for the past two years, 2015, 2016, and 2017. She is currently coaching the Egyptian team of FIRST Global for the third time. Sondos started studying robotics in 2008. As a contestant, her journey started in 2009, competing in the FLL, in FLL 2010 she won “Best Robot Performance Award”. In 2011, she made it to the semifinals in the WRO GEN II challenge which was held in the UAE. She participated in the Minesweeper contest that was organized for College students when she was in high school and she participated in the Moonbots challenge too. In 2012, she made it to Malaysia after winning second place in the WRO GEN II league. From land rovers to ROVs, her robots have evolved: in 2013 her Remotely Operated Vehicle won the first place in the Explorers category and the whole team made it to the international contest MATE ROV which was held in Seattle,USA. In 2014, she did not only win the “Best Technical Report Award” of the ROV in the national contest, but she also participated in the RoboCupJunior which was held in Brazil, Soccer league and won the “Best Super Team Communication Award”. The second place was occupied by her and her team for two successive years, 2015, 2016, which qualified them to compete in the international contest. As a coach, her team got “Best Presentation Award” in the FLL Egypt Senior Solution Challenge 2011, 3rd place in the WRO Egypt elementary challenge. In 2016, her students won the first place in the VEX IQ Middle team challenges which qualified them to the international event in Kentucky, USA.