SINGAPORE: Palestinian student Raz­an Shawar has travelled for 24 hours to showcase her team’s AI-powered inventi­on at the World Robot Olympiad in Singapore, telling innovation — not war — should be why people hear about her country.

The 15-year-old high school student from Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank said she dreams of making “something big, so the world can know that the one who did this is Palestinian”.

Together with the rest of the Palestinian delegation, she made the journey from the West Bank via Jordan and Dubai to attend the three-day global robotic tournament in Singapore that ended on Friday.

More than 1,500 competitors from over 90 countries and territories gathered in the Southeast Asian city for the event, aimed at harnessing the innovative spirit of the world’s youth to find solutions for pressing challenges.

Malaysia stamped its class in the tournament, winning a third of the contested medals in various categories, according to a tally.

Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Canada, and the Philippines were also among the first-place awardees.

For the Palestinian students, who left without a medal, it was important to represent their nation on the global stage.

Palestinian delegations have attended World Robot Olympiad since 2014, but the Israel-Hamas war meant they did not send representatives at all to the 2023 edition in Panama, and since then, no participants from the Gaza Strip — only the West Bank.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2025