Great work comes from those who are willing to help others. Ahmad Touqan (YES 2011 - 2012, West Bank, hosted by YFU in Raleigh, NC) is one of those people.

The previous YES alumni coordinator in the West Bank, Ahmad’s enthusiasm and willingness to contribute to his community is inspiring. Ahmad’s hard work is evident to everyone; he has never hesitated to serve the YES program and volunteer with fellow YES alumni. Now a medical student, Ahmad explains, “When I saw a family at a hospital in Jerusalem breaking down into pieces, tears all over the place, I wanted to do something! I didn’t want this to happen again; the heartbreaking feeling of losing a loved one … I wanted to stop all the pain they felt.” 

Ahmad had an important experience in his medical training that led him to a major international competition. “I was in the hospital when I met a ten year old kid who had brain cancer," he explains. "The kid later had a surgery at the hospital and unfortunately, he passed away. Everyone assumed that cancer would be the reason of his death, however, it was not - he died because of an infection. This young child could have successfully beaten his cancer, but he could not beat the infection.” Ahmad continues, “All of this got me thinking about how we can prevent this tragedy from happening again, and I decided to participate in the Hult Prize competition to save as many lives, tears, and hearts as I can."

The Hult Prize is an annual competition that was established in 2010 with the goal of crowd-sourcing ideas from students by challenging them to solve social issues. Ahmad worked with three other students from different fields of study to form a team called CleanEcare. Together they came up with an idea to prevent infection spread in medical centers. They used their expertise in medicine, business administration, and engineering to come up with their innovation solution - a new type of fabric which controls the spreading of infection by using electricity for sterilization in a few seconds. 

CleanEcare participated in the first round of the Hult Prize on their campus at Al Quds University where they competed against 86 different teams. They won first place which qualified the team to participate at the regional level. Once again, Ahmad and his team placed first. Ahmad is very excited for the next step - a trip to the United Kingdom to receive training about developing the team’s project effectively.

Best of luck to Ahmad and his enthusiastic peers as they prepare for the Hult Prize finals!