Monday 14 January 2008

Specialists from Google in Jordan University

Four specialists from Google came to visit Jordan University for a quick meeting with graduating students, due to finals there were not many students there, and there were not any computer science students, the meeting lasted for forty minutes with several questions to students, it was circling around opening a regional office in the middle east and whether students mind working for google, no one said no apparantlyyy except for one who was an electrical engineer and said he is not interested in the field, they asked whether students would prefer working in the Gulf over Amman for salary increase, what about Egypt, whether they would work for regional offices in Norway or Europe or the States for example, who would want to come back if decided to go abroad, why would you want to go abroad, whats more important to you, a challenging job or a routine job that pays well, and asked the girls mentioning that its not a sexist question for who among female students are free to leave if they decided to work abroad. 2 of 5 raised their hands

they asked about feedback about Google Applications, some said that Google scholar has no arabic book listing, the google translater from arabic to english is not that efficient. they asked for ideas as well

a student asked whether google is developing an OS for mobile phones, they said its not an OS its something else, its called Android

they said to check these links for students:

http://www.code.google.com/ ( i think its so cool)

they told us to keep a side hobby of creating mobile applications because the future of internet is through mobile phones and what you can do there.

http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html

Google offers internships for students all around the year :)

http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=students.html&sid=intern

it was one nice quick meeting. the team of four were from Europe, India, and the States.

4 comments:

Qwaider قويدر said...

This is so cool. I'm so happy to see US Mega companies interested in universities in Jordan. Awesome!

Frankly the students should have showed up in greater numbers. Just for the simple fact that they would actually learn so much more from the industry than they would from their curriculum.

Tala said...

well i dont think they were interested in the university academically, they might be in a later stage, they were doing estimates about where to open and how qualified the people are, how feasable it is, what are the needs of the market, potential success and from where to hire from the arab world.

if only students understand that those seminars and discussions are eye openers,,, you know,, although those questions they asked were simple, you should have heard the answers, like if i was an investor and once i ask who is planning to leave to work abroad and 70% raise their hands and prefer to work in a regional office outside the region even if the company had an office here, i would think well about my plans to start something.

this is too hypocritical from me to say now, but do we want to develop ourselves as make here a better competing place?! graduates have no forward vision for their potential, good reading for good opportunities or smart planning or thinking as a whole.

Maher said...

oh God, i was going to come.. but i had an ethics exam after 3 hours..

cant they organize something good not in the middle of the exams!!

did the teachers attend..? many?

Tala said...

Hey Maher, hope zabbatet bil ethics, i was at the library and my friends dallu ynu22u la7atta ru7naa hehe, kan 3alai power electronics ma3 sadeq ilyom illi ba3do.

meen ija min il drs, fee nas ma ba3rafhom, but i saw Dr Gheith Abandah, Ghaleb Abassi, Anas Rabadi, i think Jamal Rahhal, and other two guys, i dont remember