Palestinian researchers defy restrictions to compete internationally

Passionately waiting to welcome young Palestinian researchers at the Birzeit University in occupied West Bank, Majdi Mafarja is happy to see his fellow Palestinians defying Israeli restrictions to take their ideas for creating breakthroughs to the Falling Wall Conference in Berlin, reports Anadolu Agency.

Falling Wall is a world-class, interdisciplinary pitch competition for students, researchers, and early-career professionals and their breakthrough ideas.

The competition is inspired by the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall that set the stage for the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990.

“Palestine is full of creative minds that can convert the theoretical knowledge to applied projects that can compete internationally,” Mafarja, an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science, Birzeit University, told Anadolu Agency.

The university organises the competition for the 5th consecutive year despite Israeli restrictions that deny Palestinian researchers from the Gaza Strip the opportunity to participate in the event.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza since 2007, badly affecting livelihood in the Palestinian territory.

Anger has been growing across the occupied Palestinian territories as conditions for its residents increasingly worsen. Travel and imports are heavily controlled by the Israeli military, so researchers find it almost impossible to get to international conferences or labs and to access research materials.

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