About RoboNest
Building Saudi Arabia's Future Engineering Talent Pipeline
RoboNest is The College of Engineering's Outreach, Innovation and Engineering Incubator, owned and governed by College of Engineering, Prince Sultan University. It exists to identify promising young engineering talent in schools and give it a structured path through competition, mentoring and hands-on incubation into real engineering capability.
Why RoboNest exists
From Curiosity to Capability
Many talented students never get the chance to test an engineering idea against the real world. RoboNest exists to close that gap, connecting schools directly to the College of Engineering so a student's curiosity can become a working prototype, with mentors, facilities and a clear pathway behind them.
The competition discovers talent. The incubator develops talent. The College of Engineering transforms talent into future engineering capability.
Vision & mission
What We're Building Toward
Vision
To position Prince Sultan University as a leading national platform for discovering and developing the next generation of engineers and technology innovators.
Mission
To identify, inspire and incubate future engineering talent by connecting schools with the College of Engineering through competition, mentoring, technical development, engineering facilities and industry collaboration.
The name
Why 'RoboNest'
A nest is where growth begins under protection and guidance before flight. RoboNest brings that same idea to engineering education. Schools and the College of Engineering provide the structure, mentoring and safety for a student's earliest engineering ideas to develop into something real before they head out into further study and careers.
Steering Committee
Our Global Team and Governance
CHAIR
Prof. Abdulhakim Almajed
Dean, College of Engineering, Prince Sultan University, KSA
VICE CHAIR
Dr. Muddesar Iqbal
CE RoboNest Program Lead, Convener and Organizing Secretary, KSA
VICE CHAIR
Dr. Moustafa Nasralla
Chairperson, Communications and Networks Engineering Department, Prince Sultan University, KSA
Industry Linkages Lead
Dr. Jamie Meehan
Head of Industrial Cluster Innovation & Ecosystem Transformation, Ireland
Commercialization Lead
Prof. Henry Wang
Director, XJTLU-uGo Robotics Research Centre, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Incubation Lead
Hamaad Ali Akbar
Associate Innovation Manager, Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), London, UK
Incubation Co-Lead
Monica Maurici
Entrepreneurship Programme Manager, London South Bank University, London, UK
Ethics and Compliance Lead
Anjam Ara
Board-certified Legal, Governance, Risk and Compliance Executive, NEOM, KSA
International benchmarking
Learning from Leading Engineering Outreach Programmes
RoboNest is designed with reference to established international programmes, including:
- Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams
High-school invention teams at MIT receive grants and mentoring to build solutions to real-world problems.
- MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute
A rigorous, project-based STEM programme for high-achieving high-school students at MIT.
- Georgia Tech K-12 InVenture Prize
An invention and entrepreneurship programme challenging K-12 students to design and pitch original solutions.
- Imperial College London Schools Outreach
Imperial's Faculty of Engineering outreach programme for secondary-school students in STEM.
- FIRST Robotics Competition
An international robotics programme where high-school students design, build and compete with mentors.
- IEEE Educational Activities
IEEE's global educational and outreach initiatives supporting engineering education at every level.