Author: Asmaa Y. Shaheen

The team of MS@CPS at Palestine Technical College – Deir El-Balah (PTC) participated and presented the MS@CPS in the Erasmus Plus information day, which took place at the Islamic University of Gaza in Gaza City on Monday 23rd of December 2019. The event, which is devoted to increasing awareness of the Erasmus+ calls that are available for academic community. MS@CPS was present with brochures and a roll-up of the project at the event venue. The event was launched by president of the Islamic university of Gaza Prof. Naser Farahat and the director of the National Erasmus+ Office Dr. Nedal Jayousi. The event included presentations about the different calls of the Erasmus+ program.

Press article in “La Gazette du Sud” magazine about MS@CPS project meeting at ISIMS, university of Sfax, Tunisa. The magazine language is French and it covers news and information related to Sfax region, Tunisia

The higher Institute of computer science and Multimedia (ISIMS) at the university of Sfax organized on the 4th of December 2019 the Open Days 2019 (JPO’2019) event. It comes after achieving success during the last years in organizing such events. Many enterprises were invited and the doors were open to students and industrial representatives in order to exchange ideas. The aim of this event is to create communication channel between students and the industry representatives. Moreover, it aims to align the contents of the offered courses with the needs of the market through plenary sessions presenting subjects in the context of innovation and digitization. JPO 2019 also contained interviews and direct contact between students and companies about the cyber physical systems master program which will be launched next year with the frame of Erasmus+ MS@CPS project.
A keynote talk in the event was given by the dean of the institute, Professor Faiez Gargouri, who presented the proposed CPS master program for the students and for industrial representatives. The master program captured the interest of computer science industrial attendees.
In conclusion, JPO 2019 enabled the ISIMS to listen to industrialists working on large-scale projects and discuss with them CPS master program structure. Moreover, it created sustainable cooperation through developing educational programs that meet the needs of companies. Lastly, it Introduced topics for internship so that students can interact with professionals and learn about the benefits of the proposed internships.

Start of the opening session of the MS@CPS consortium face to face meeting at Sfax university. The meeting will discuss current status and progress of the MS@CPS project. The meeting will last from 5-7 November 2019 and it is hosted by higher institute of computer sciences and Multimedia of Sfax.

On 23 of October 2019 Eng. Asmaa Shaheen and Dr. Ezzaldeen Edwan presented the MS@CPS paper entitled “Work in Progress – Establishing a Master Program in Cyber Physical Systems: Basic Findings and Future Perspectives” at the international conference on promising electronic technologies ICPET 2019 in the first session which is entitled Capacity Building.
The presentation is followed by open panel from the audience.
Questions showed great interest from academia and industry in the project.
It should be noted that the presented paper will be published with the conference proceedings at IEEE Xplore digital library.

Dr. Isam Ishaq from Al-Quds university participated and presented the MS@CPS in the Erasmus Plus information day, which took place at Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah on Wednesday 16th of October 2019. This is an annual event, which is devoted to increasing awareness of the Erasmus+ calls that are available for academic community. MS@CPS has an information desk at the event venue with brochures and a poster of the project.
The event was launched under the patronage of H.E. the Palestinian prime minister Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh. It was attended by the minster of higher education and scientific research Dr. Mahmoud Abu Mowais, director of the National Erasmus+ Office Dr. Nedal Jayousi. In addition, the conference was attended by European and Palestinian officials, Presidents, Deans, and Professors from different Palestinian universities and higher education institutions, and representatives from private sector and NGOs.

On the 30th of September 2019, the project leader University of Siegen organized a second online workshop over video conference among all partners of the project to proceed in the tasks of curriculum development at work package 2. The meeting started with a presentation given by Christian Weber  from the University of Siegen that discussed concepts of “Projects in Practice” and “Design and Development Case Studies”. He presented as well another short presentation about “Futures” of learning, along technology. The aim of this workshop was to discuss the current state of teaching and find the best approach to realize the project. The workshop comes as work is being progressed on the accreditation applications at each partner country.
The participants also discussed topics to be worked on in face to face meeting at Sfax next month.

Today the17th of September 2019, the national Erasmus+ office of Palestine represented by its director Dr. Nedal Jayousi accompanied with the programme officer Ms. Rawan Saqfalhett conducted the first monitoring visit to Al-Quds University (AQU) to evaluate the progress of the MS@CPS project. Dr. Rashid Jayousi the local coordinator, Dr. Isam Ishaq and Dr. Salah Oudeh from AQU team presented the project status in preparation activities, curricula development and quality plan. The discussions were very fruitful and Dr. Nedal Jayousi praised the progress conducted so far and suggested to finish early the accreditation procedure to reach optimal results of the project and expressed his support for the project. Representatives of Palestine Technical College – Deir El-Balah (PTC) the other Palestinian consortium partner were present as well via video conference and presented progress in dissemination and exploitation activities. Moreover, representatives of project leader the University of Siegen presented the management status of the project and other consortium partners participated in this meeting as well via video conference.