Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Engineer Bayan Abu Salama, a 25-year-old from Jenin in the West Bank and a graduate of Birzeit University, invents a new method for building miniature satellites. She received her master's degree with distinction at Queen Mary University of London. It named the first model (Palestine 1) to be the first Palestinian satellite in the world.
Bayan completed her high school studies from Beituniya Girls’ Secondary School in Ramallah, graduated from Birzeit University, Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2018, and began studying for a master’s degree in London in 2020 to finish in the current year 2021.
In an interview with "Lakum" magazine, a statement said that the cubic satellites are miniature satellites launched by countries in orbits close to the outer membrane of the earth's crust. It costs less than regular satellites, and usually lasts a few months in orbit. It is a new kind of race for countries in space conquest, and it is a guide for scientific and academic competencies. My master's thesis was my personal design for the first Palestinian miniature satellite (Palestine-1). In my thesis, I designed and worked on an analysis of the satellite's forces under launch conditions.
I have a strong belief that Palestine will be one of the countries that will participate in the space invasion, and I also believe that with financial support for this project, we can implement and launch it as the first Palestinian satellite.
Bayan spoke with UK in Jerusalem about her personal Chevening experience and her participation in projects, most notably the Satellite Model: “A year ago, my friend advised me to attend an orientation session for a Chevening Scholarship. I applied for many scholarships before and they were rejected and I didn't want to be rejected again. But this time, my name appeared among the scholarship recipients and here I am, becoming a Chevener!
I remember being at university the only girl in the engineering workshop course, and I often felt ostracized. After that, I went to participate in the extracurricular leadership activities to find an environment to which I belong. I started volunteering in my freshman year, and completed all required volunteer hours. I later became the student coordinator for the Right to Education campaign in my sophomore year. I competed for the Hult Prize and became a competition coordinator in my freshman and sophomore years.
Every step of this journey was filled with new people, new experiences, happy memories, stressful situations, people who influenced my life, and now I happily call them my friends. It was not easy and I did all this while I was a student from the Middle East. I had a lot of setbacks, I failed some courses, but I managed to graduate before the semester.
Today, I humbly say, I have been awarded a Chevening Scholarship to pursue a master's degree in advanced mechanical engineering at Queen Mary University of London. I truly believe that every volunteer work I have done, or managed, has led to this wonderful award.”
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