A Palestinian student has graduated at the top of his class at a Dublin university after creating an AI-powered sustainability app.<\/p>\n
Technology student Elias Amro (25), who is from Bethlehem, came to Ireland in September 2024 to study at Dublin City University (DCU).<\/p>\n
He chose to study for a master\u2019s in Ireland because of its support for Palestinians and was awarded the Ireland Fellow Programme scholarship.<\/p>\n
He said while he was excited at the opportunity to study at DCU, his mind was often on his family back home.<\/p>\n
The government in Israel is acting to deepen its control in the occupied West Bank, while the Irish Government mulls plans to ban goods from illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would constantly be checking the news, making sure your parents are safe, calling your parents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much uncertainty in day-to-day life in Palestine, and it often left me battling with my own thoughts here in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amro said that while he enjoyed modules on cybersecurity, web application development and entrepreneurship for engineers, he sometimes felt that worrying about his health might affect his studies.<\/p>\n
Instead he topped his class and received a first-class honours in his MSc in electronic and computer technology.<\/p>\n
His final project was the Student Outlet, a sustainability-focused web platform which lets students buy and sell second-hand goods more easily.<\/p>\n
Motivated by research indicating that a third of Irish students are facing financial difficulties, Amro also hoped to support the \u201ccircular economy\u201d and reduce the number of reusable items being thrown away.<\/p>\n
He also used an AI listing tool to help save students time in buying and selling items from 10 to two minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just snap a photo, it\u2019s as simple as that, and it will do the process for you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He is now hoping to commercialise the Student Outlet platform and, based on existing data, he estimates that if the app was scaled up and used by the DCU student population it could prevent more than 700 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.<\/p>\n
Despite the success of the project, Amro feared he might fail the course because of stress, and had to develop strategies to look after his wellbeing.<\/p>\n
This was supported through counselling sessions provided by DCU and the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very, very overwhelming. It still is, to some extent, but at least now I\u2019ve learned much better how to manage it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made some amazing friends,\u201d he added, and mentioned taking part in activities such as rock climbing and archery.<\/p>\n
Amro is now employed in the DCU mobility office and is working on streamlining ts software systems to make it more user-friendly and automating other logistical tasks.<\/p>\n
He said he is focused on making Ireland his home for now, but Palestine remains on his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are still getting bombed now. They\u2019re still annexing more land,\u201d he said, adding that Palestinians live with \u201cthis constant fear of just being arrested for literally nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re able to just live your life in the way that you want to here. Whereas, at the moment, that\u2019s not possible in Palestine.\u201d \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Palestinian student has graduated at the top of his class at a Dublin university after creating an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,615,22199,61,60,4268,80,17159,27129],"class_list":{"0":"post-385117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-dublin","12":"tag-dublin-city-university","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-palestine","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-third-level","18":"tag-west-bank"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}