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Lebanese Professor Wins Great Arab Minds Award in Technology, Engineering

Lebanese professor Fadil Adib. Asharaq Al-Awsat
Lebanese professor Fadil Adib. Asharaq Al-Awsat
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Lebanese Professor Wins Great Arab Minds Award in Technology, Engineering

Lebanese professor Fadil Adib. Asharaq Al-Awsat
Lebanese professor Fadil Adib. Asharaq Al-Awsat

Lebanon’s Fadil Adib, associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), won the Great Arab Minds Award 2023 in engineering and technology, for his contributions that have significantly expanded the possibilities of wireless sensing technology, enabling detection behind walls and the use of wireless waves in medicine and search for survivors under the rubble.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, vice president and ruler of Dubai, said innovation and creative engineering have always contributed to the progress of humanity, and were a major part of the Arab civilization, which the younger generations are looking forward to resume and to contribute to its achievements using technology and digitization.

"Today, we proudly announce the winner of the Great Arab Minds Award in engineering and technology, Professor Fadil Adib from Lebanon. He has published over 80 research papers and holds patents in the fields of engineering and technology. His significant contributions have served humanity in vital fields such as healthcare, wireless sensing and oceans exploration,” he added.

"Today, in the Arab world, we have millions of programmers, engineers, computer scientists, and technology experts who are capable of producing an effective knowledge and development movement in their societies, economies and world. The Great Arab Minds initiative aims to honor the achievements of creative people among them so they can serve as role models for their peers,” the Ruler of Dubai said.

"With their achievements and in their various positions, Arabs are the ambassadors of values, capabilities and aspirations of the young Arab generations eager to develop their societies and advance humanity,” he noted.

Adib developed a battery-free device that harness energy from ocean waves.

His doctoral dissertation, “See through Wall”, was named as one of the best 50 transformative contributions from MIT in computer science in the past 50 years.

Launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the Great Arab Minds Award is aimed at introducing and celebrating the brightest minds in the Arab world, as well as honoring those whose works left remarkable impact in their societies. The award also reflects the ruler’s support of innovation and scientific, cultural and intellectual advancement in the region.

Fadel’s leading research and inventions have contributed to expanding the possibilities of wireless sensing technology and progressing in fields that are vital for the future of development in the Arab region and the world.

He harnessed wi-fi techniques in sensing what’s behind walls, enabling the detection of objects and vibrations. This advanced technology can be used to monitor patients' health conditions around the clock, and in search and rescue operations under rubble and during disasters.

For his part, Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, chairman of the Great Arab Minds initiative, said: "The Arab world has promising talents in advanced technology and creative engineering that are capable of providing unprecedented added value to human knowledge and progress.”

He called on Arab youth to be inspired by the experiences of Arab geniuses such as Adib.

The announcement of the winner in the engineering and technology category comes after completing all stages of receiving, sorting, and evaluating nominations within the six categories: engineering and technology, medicine, economics, architecture and design, natural sciences, and literature and arts.

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Varieties

Scientists Release Plans for an Even Bigger Atom Smasher to Address the Mysteries of Physics

Mike Lamont, director for accelerators and technology, center left, and Fabiola Gianotti, center right, director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), speak with members of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Large Magnet Facility during a visit to CERN facilities in Meyrin, near Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, March 21, 2025. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
Mike Lamont, director for accelerators and technology, center left, and Fabiola Gianotti, center right, director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), speak with members of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Large Magnet Facility during a visit to CERN facilities in Meyrin, near Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, March 21, 2025. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
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Scientists Release Plans for an Even Bigger Atom Smasher to Address the Mysteries of Physics

Mike Lamont, director for accelerators and technology, center left, and Fabiola Gianotti, center right, director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), speak with members of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Large Magnet Facility during a visit to CERN facilities in Meyrin, near Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, March 21, 2025. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
Mike Lamont, director for accelerators and technology, center left, and Fabiola Gianotti, center right, director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), speak with members of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Large Magnet Facility during a visit to CERN facilities in Meyrin, near Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, March 21, 2025. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

Top minds at the world's largest atom smasher have released a blueprint for a much bigger successor that could vastly improve research into the remaining enigmas of physics.

The plans for the Future Circular Collider — a nearly 91-kilometer (56.5-mile) loop along the French-Swiss border and below Lake Geneva — published late Monday put the finishing details on a project roughly a decade in the making at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The FCC would carry out high-precision experiments in the mid-2040s to study “known physics” in greater detail, then enter a second phase — planned for 2070 — that would conduct high-energy collisions of protons and heavy ions that would “open the door to the unknown,” said Giorgio Chiarelli, a research director at Italy’s National Institute of Nuclear Physics, The AP news reported.

“History of physics tells that when there is more data, the human ingenuity is able to extract more information than originally expected,” Chiarelli, who was not involved in the plans, said in an e-mail.

For roughly a decade, top minds at CERN have been making plans for a successor to the Large Hadron Collider, a network of magnets that accelerate particles through a 27-kilometer (17-mile) underground tunnel and slam them together at velocities approaching the speed of light.

“Ultimately what we would like to do is a collider which will come up with 10 times more energy than what we have today,” said Arnaud Marsollier, a CERN spokesman. “When you have more energy, then you can create particles that are heavier.”

The blueprint lays out the proposed path, environmental impact, scientific ambitions and project cost. Independent experts will take a look before CERN's two dozen member countries decide in 2028 whether to go forward, starting in the mid-2040s at a cost of some 14 billion Swiss francs (about $16 billion).

CERN officials tout the promise of scientific discoveries that could drive innovation in fields like cryogenics, superconducting magnets and vacuum technologies that could benefit humankind.

Outside experts point to the promise of learning more about the Higgs boson, the elusive particle that has been controversially dubbed “the God particle,” which helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang.

Work at the particle collider confirmed in 2013 the existence of the Higgs boson — the central piece in a puzzle known as the standard model that helps explains some fundamental forces in the universe.

“This set of reports represents an important milestone in the process, but a full sense of the likelihood of it being brought to fruition will only be known through careful studies by scientists, engineers and others, including politicians who must make difficult decisions at time when uncertainty rules the day,” Dave Toback, a professor of physics and astronomy at Texas A&M University, said in an e-mail.

The new collider “provides an exciting opportunity for the particle physics community, and indeed all of physics, on the world stage,” said Toback, who was not affiliated with the plans, and who worked for years at the Fermilab Tevatron collider in the United States that was shut down in 2011.

CERN scientists, engineers and partners behind the plans considered at least 100 scenarios for the new collider before coming up with the proposed 91-kilometer circumference at an average depth of 200 meters (656 feet). The tunnel would be about 5 meters (16 feet) in diameter, CERN said.