Here is a list of important events and updates from Education City that you might have missed over the summer.

QF Radio programs terminated
By Wajeeha Malik

Qatar Foundation Radio 91.7 FM announced in June that it will end all operations by October 2016. While QF has not provided a clear reason for the radio station’s closure, a statement on its website says it is part of the foundation’s “new phase of sustainable development” under which the organization “must continue to be more efficient and beneficial to the public, and evolve the way it communicates with its audiences.”

The announcement came as a surprise to many, including the students and staff members employed by QF Radio. Since its inception in 2009, QF Radio had proved popular among the Education City community. Pre-recorded and past programs will be played till the channel goes off air.

TAMUQ and GU-Q appoint new deans
By Shakeeb Asrar

The Georgetown University in Qatar and Texas A&M University at Qatar both appointed new deans for their respective schools this summer.

Dr. James Reardon-Anderson, who was previously Senior Associate Dean of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., joined as GU-Q’s new dean starting July 2016. Reardon-Anderson was the founding dean of GU-Q but left Qatar in 2009 citing personal reasons. He succeeds Gerd Nonneman, who finished his five-year term as GU-Q’s dean this past year but remains on the Doha campus as a faculty member.

Dr. César O. Malavé took over as the dean and Chief Operating Officer of TAMUQ also in July 2016. He was previously a senior faculty member at the university’s main campus in Texas and succeeds Dr. Mark H. Weichold, who stepped down as dean and Chief Executive Officer of TAMUQ to become the executive director of the Halliburton Global Engineering Program in Texas A&M’s College of Engineering at the main campus.

NU-Q Student nominated for Student Oscar
By Meher Mehtab

Shahnawaz Zali, an aspiring filmmaker and a recent Northwestern University in Qatar graduate, has been nominated for the Student Academy Awards for his award-winning movie “100 Steps.”

The short film has been nominated for Best Film in the narrative category for the 43^rd Student Oscars. Zali is the only Pakistani to have ever been nominated for the Student Academy Awards and is also the first NU-Q student to make it to the final nominations.

“[100 Steps]is a story of innocence and the bravery of a child going through brainwashing at an extremist recruitment camp,” says Zali.

Zali has earned overnight fame in his home country, including a Twitter shout-out and praise from Pakistani documentarian Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, a two-time Oscar winner. The results will be announced in a ceremony on September 22, 2016.

CMU-Q Graduate participates in Rio Olympics
By Nayab Malik

Nada Arakji, a female competitive swimmer from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar represented Qatar at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Arakji is a recent CMU-Q graduate who swam the 100-meter butterfly race and ranked 44th.

This is the second time Arakji has represented Qatar at an international event; she swam the 50-meter freestyle at the 2012 Olympics in London while in her first year at university. Arakji majored in business administration from CMU-Q and was its class of 2016 student graduation speaker.

The swimmer hopes to create a better athletic environment in Qatar. “I definitely hope to inspire more young athletes to take up sport, especially women. I encourage all the girls out there to not be afraid and take risks…education or sports or other things,” she told Qatar News Agency.

CMU-Q wins Harvard Coding Competition
By Ifath Sayed

In an intense online competition organized by Harvard University, a team of four students from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar won first position among 659 teams from 89 countries. The team consisted of four Computer Science sophomores, Mohammed Abdullah Khan, Abubaker Omer, Mohammed Hashim Qusai and Julian Sam, and was one of 12 teams to win first position by solving all the 10 coding problems provided online.

CS50X Coding Contest 2016 was held for 72 hours from July 29 to July 31 and was the first edition of an international programming competition organized by Harvard University and supported by scholars from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University.

“The competition really pushes you to think in different ways to not only make correct code and algorithms, but also efficient ones that are both accurate and fast,” said Khan. “We are all passionate about computer science, and we needed some challenge to spice up our summer.”