AL-MUHANDES

As I mentioned in the last issue, with the New Year new opportunities have been created, our efforts went to Washington DC to meet with engineers, architects, and computer professionals from Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The first meeting was attended by approximately 50 professional who listened to the Chicago experience presentation presented by Mr. Abed Gholeh, AAAEA-Chicago board of trustees' chairman. It is worth noticing that this is biggest first meeting ever among all our associations around the country. As a result, our colleagues in DC formed their steering committee which consists of 12 members. Congratulations and good job.

There are also new efforts and new momentum in Orlando, FL. Keep up the good work Orlando, the national outreach committee in Chicago and the National Steering Committee is backing you up and available for any help you may need.

Also, I would like to congratulate Tech-Wadi on their successful conference in California which was attended by more than 200 professional from the US, Canada, and several Arab Countries.

New contacts have been established in Oregon, Nevada, and Minnesota. The national outreach committee in Chicago is working hand in hand with the individuals in these states to set up their first meetings and help forming their steering committees during 2008.

The national committees continue to meet and moving forward to accomplish their tasks. The structure/legal/by-laws committee has met and identified all the items to be discussed and accomplished during 2008.

As a national steering committee, we encourage all the associations across the country to create a program and identify the activities that meet their members' interest on the local level and let's work together and accomplish our goals towards the national association.

Sincerely,

Mustafa Mahamid, PhD, PE,

National Steering Committee Chairman

Open Source Development Model

By Dr. Ibrahim Haddad

The open source development model has unique characteristics that position it in some instances as a more superior model to develop software when compared to the traditional software engineering cascade model. In this article, Dr. Ibrahim Haddad presents an overview of the open source development model, its benefits and recommended practices.

click here to read the full article

Feature A Sister Association: AAEAA-Illinois

In the fall of 1996, a group of engineers gathered to discuss the need for an organization to serve the interests of Arab American Engineers and Architects in the Chicago land area. After a year of planning, they convened more than fifty (50) engineers and architects to elect the first executive board for the newly founded Arab-American Association of Engineers and Architects (AAAEA). Shortly after, the association was registered with the State of Illinois as a non-profit professional organization.

Today, our association has an active chapter in Peoria, Illinois and student chapters at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), and University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The association in Illinois has over three hundred members. Among the members are educators, professional engineers, architects, computer scientists, engineering company owners, partners, students and associate members.

Click here to complete this article

NAAMA Website Design

NAAMA (National Arab American Medical Association)has decided to redo the web site. We have a duty to open the service for open bids. The EC will evaluate the bids and decide. The bid will be looked at with the following in mind:

a. Design
b. Scalability
c. Accessibility
d. Functionality
e. Support
f. Reliability
Please have the bidder review our current web site www.naama.com

Please contact Dr. Eid Mustafa @Dr Eid Mustafa <mufasa2u@aol.com to submit proposals

PB Jobs

PB Structures Technical Resource Center - Attached please find 33 open job positions from PB Structural Department. To apply, please visit PB website by clicking at http://search0.smartsearchonline.com/pb/jobs/adhocjobsearchUS.asp . Then search by Job ID # or by Job Category. When you find the position(s) you are interested in, please "APPLY DIRECTLY ONLINE".

click here to see the job opennings

2007 in Review - Illinois Activities

by Jamal Grainawi

During 2007, AAAEA conducted several events and activities and it was a busy year for all of us. Below is a list of events since our last newsletter (March 2007). If you missed any of these events, please visit our website or contact the chair person of the event for more information.

Click here for full list of activities

AAAEA Members open Overseas Chapter

Dear Sirs

The Arab American Engineers and Architects Association - Overseas Chapter announces its establishment. The website of the association is www.aaeaa-os.org

Regards,

Ahmad Borenie

Ihab Elokda

Going National Together

In the last 2-3 years,AAAEA-IL has promoted the idea of forming a national association for Engineers,Architects,and Computer professionals in the US.

We have supported colleagues across the country in forming local associations in there areas/states.AAAEA created a power point presentation to share the experience we have in the last 11 years.

Among the places we promoted this idea are,Wisconsin,Indiana.Baton Rouge and New Orleans-LA,Tampa,Orlando,South Florida in Florida,Tri-State (NY,NJ,CT),Dearborh and Kalamazoo-Mi,DC area,Memphis-Tn,Texas,Seattle-WA,San Francisco,and San Diago-Ca.

In total,at least 15 different locations(some more than once)were visited to promote the national association and support our colleagues to create their associations in there states.

As you may know by now,associations are formed in Fl,NJ,NY,CT,WI,IN,LA,TX,AND MI,in addition to working with our sister association in California Tech Wadi.

Two national conferences were held in the last two years,the first was held on 11/11/06 in Chicago,and the second national conference was held on 9/1/07 in Dearborn-Mi.These two national conferences created and modified the 5 year plan which call for the formation of a national organization in the us by 2011(see attachment).

The third national conference is planned for 10/18/08 in Chicago,and we hope the meeting will be held with new members from new associations formed this year like DC association.

In order for the national dream to be realized,it is essential for the existing associations to start being sustainable,credible and provide services thru activities and programs for our members.T o support that,the second national conference created ALMUHANDES monthly newsletter to promote the association and for the newsletter to be a tool to improve networking ,in addition to learn from each other.

It is time for our sister associations to stop and create programs and activities for 2008 and not leave these events without planning and without promoting these activities.

T assist you doing that,please review the article in this issue of ALMUHANDES from AAAEA-IL,2007 in review to assist your associations with ideas for activities.

In conclusion,a national association can be accomplished if ,and ONLY if we are all credible,sustainable,democratic, inclusive,and provide members with services.

Arab Technology Forum 2008

"TechWadi (an affiliate Arab American Hi-Tech Networking Organization of AAAEA) held an excellent conference called "Arab Technology Forum 2008" in Palo Alto, California from Jan.15-17.2008. HRH Princess Sumaya bint El-Hassan who chairs the PSUT (Princess Sumaya University of Technology) in Jordan was the patron for the conference and delivered excellent and motivating speeches about the need for more emphasis on Science & Technology in the Arab World, as well as more Science & Technology partnerships between US, Canada, Europe on one side and the Arab World (MENA region) on the other side. She also stressed the positive role that the Arab Diaspora play in being the bridge between these two sides/worlds. There were alot of Excellent speakers, one of them was John Waclawsky, Chief Architect @ Motorola Software Group, as well as Ussama Fayad who is an Executive VP @ Yahoo.

The US-Arab Chamber of Commerce (http://www.nusacc.org) is the co-host of this event. The event was attended by approx 200 people (from Engineers to CEOs) from various US and Canadian cities as well as Europe and several countries from the MENA (Mid East North Africa) region. Several panels covered various interesting topics about the Technology and the MENA region. There were also site tours to Yahoo, Cortina Systems & Tessera in the Bay area (aka Silicon Valley) . A gala dinner was attended by various people from the US, Canada and the MENA region and HRH delivered an excellent speech as well. Pls visit TechWadi's web site to learn more and view the photos of this wonderful event: http://www.TechWadi.org "

Regards,

Raed

AAAEA Going National to DC

As part of our National Outreach,AAAEA has visited and met with the engineering community in the DC area on Saturday 1/12/08.

The meeting was attended by about 50 colleagues,and the power poin presentation "The Chicago Experience"was discussed by our AAAEA chairman Abed Gholeh.

The Chicago Experience was well received,and a sreering committee was formed to work on the creation of a sister association in DC area(Maryland,Virginia,and DC).

We wish our colleagues the best of luck.

DC Steering Committee

Walid Halboni
Eissa Haj-Hamad, P.E.
Hatim Hajj, P.E.
Samir A. Alqutri, P.E.
Ayad Bazlamit, P.E.
Kalid Zaid, P.E.
Hilal Jaber, P.E.
Anwar Maharmeh,
Abdallah A. Adas, P.E.
Hana Hanbali
Thoria Hassan,
Mohammad Ayyoubi,
Salaheddin Ramadan
Maher Daewish
Mohamad Labban, P.E
Mohamad Shalabi, P.E.

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