UTAS Sohar showcases innovation at Smart Engineering Day

SUHAR: The University of Technology and Applied Sciences (UTAS) Suhar has concluded its 'Future Solutions Innovative Projects Competition' as part of Smart Engineering Day activities, highlighting student-led innovations aligned with Omani identity and professional engineering standards.
Organised by the university’s Engineering Department, the event brought together student innovators, engineers and academics, and showcased projects focused on sustainability, smart technologies and practical solutions to societal challenges.
Three student projects were recognised for their originality, technical depth and social impact.
Speaking on the winning entries, Dr Mohammed Salah, Head of the Engineering Department at UTAS Suhar, said the first-place project in the High-Level Design category, 'Berwaz,' is an integrated digital platform for Omani art and literature.
The initiative provides a unified space for showcasing and marketing artworks and literary publications, while offering artists and writers a professional digital presence aimed at reaching wider local and international audiences.
He noted that the platform addresses the lack of a unified professional channel for promoting Omani creative works and supports online sales of publications produced by literary forums and institutions. The project targets more than 1,000 visual artists, digital creators, photographers, writers and literature enthusiasts.
The second-place project, 'Hydro-Entropy,' focuses on developing advanced hydrogen storage materials using computational modelling and simulation via HEAPS software. The project designs high-entropy alloys composed of titanium, vanadium, zirconium, hafnium and niobium to study their efficiency and safety in hydrogen storage systems.
Dr Salah said the project supports the emerging hydrogen economy in Al Jabal Al Akhdhar and aligns with Oman Vision 2040’s sustainability and renewable energy goals.
The first-place winning project, 'Wafra,' is a smart energy management system using Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. It enables automated energy control, real-time monitoring, instant alerts and predictive analytics of consumption patterns.
He added that such student-driven engineering innovations play a key role in developing intelligent solutions for resource management, reducing waste and building stronger sustainability-focused engineering capabilities in Oman.