On May 2 the Qatar National Library hosted “Science Book Forum: Qatar-NASA Joint Mission Concept to Study Deserts.” This event stems from the Space Act Agreement between NASA and Qatar Foundation, represented by Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) and the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute. It highlighted the mission’s goal to explore the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as map the shallow aquifers in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and understand how they respond to climatic and human drivers. This special forum featured Dr. Essam Heggy, Project Principal Investigator, and Dr. Artur Chmielewski, Project Manager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with an introduction by His Excellency Dr. Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, Minister of State, Qatar and President of Qatar National Library.
The Forum was followed by another event titled “Language Barriers and the COVID-19 Pandemic” which efforts of Qatar’s government to used 2 unique languages to effectively communicate with the public during the COVID-19 crisis were highlighted.
Dr. Radwan Ahmed from Qatar University and Dr. Sarah Hillman from Texas A&M University in Qatar presented the summary of their research study on the use of other languages by the government agencies in Qatar to promote health awareness campaign regarding the Corona pandemic.
