Boeing has formed a number of strong relationships with leading regional entities over the course of its time in the Middle East.
The company has supported various education and training programs and initiatives in Qatar. Examples include the Boeing Lecture Series, aimed at the local aerospace industry’s next-generation leaders and students. Lectures and seminars include some given by Boeing senior executives and even a former astronaut.
In 2013, Boeing announced a joint research project with the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) to examine ways to better recognize patterns, correlations and anomalies in data produced by aerospace systems. Building on that research, each year, Boeing and QCRI host a symposium focused on data analytics and machine learning. The symposium brings together some of the world’s top researchers and practitioners in machine learning and data analytics, which are two of the fastest growing areas of computer and data sciences.
Boeing also hosted an educator from the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority to attend the 2011 Space Camp program at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. This space camp teaches instructors how to integrate math and science into education curriculums and make the learning experience fun.
In 2011, Boeing supported an initiative that brought together the Qatar Foundation and the Museum of Flight, located in Seattle, Wash., to host educational aviation activities that taught children the basics of flight. In January 2012, the Museum of Flight was invited to host the very first aviation educational outreach activities for local youth at the Al Khor Airfield Fly-In event in Qatar. The Museum of Flight also managed an activity to teach children how to make simple robots.
Boeing sponsored the participation of two Qatari women for the 2011 annual Society of Women conference in Chicago. One participant was a Qatar Airways employee working on aircraft maintenance, and the other was a senior engineering student at Texas A&M University Qatar.
In January 2016, Boeing agreed to support Carnegie Mellon University Qatar with its computer science outreach program. The program creates hands-on workshops focused on encouraging young Qataris to study computer science. A few months later, Boeing announced that it would participate with the College of Engineering at Qatar University to help engineering students build an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that could be used for air-quality monitoring.
Boeing is also working to welcome university students and fresh graduates from Qatar to Boeing’s International Business Intern program. The annual program allows students to spend six months working in the United States at the Commercial Airplanes facility in Renton, Wash.