STEAMathon Qatar among world’s top 100 education innovations

Qatar's STEAMathon initiative has earned a prestigious spot among the world's top 100 education innovations, as designated by HundrED's Global Collection for 2027. This accolade, alongside 99 other innovative programs from around the globe, underscores the program's significant impact on learning and its potential for broader adoption across diverse educational settings.

STEAMathon Qatar, a homegrown initiative rooted in Qatari schools, is spearheaded by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in collaboration with Teach For Qatar. The program, which integrates science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), aims to cultivate practical skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork among students.

Through hands-on projects that address real-world sustainability challenges, students learn to apply classroom knowledge to their communities and contribute to a more sustainable future.

The selection process, involving over 800 educational innovations, was conducted by HundrED, a Finland-based organization dedicated to identifying and promoting promising educational innovations worldwide. HundrED received extensive feedback from 250 members of the HundrED Academy, who submitted 3,590 reviews and assessments of each initiative's educational impact, scalability, and potential for implementation in different contexts.

Reem al-Suwaidi, an assistant director of the technical office and leader of the Innovation Incubators Project, represented the ministry at the Global Education Forum and HundrED Innovation Summit held in Madrid, Spain, on November 12-13, 2026. The STEAMathon initiative's journey began in 2020 at Saad bin Muadh Primary School for Boys, with the founding of the idea by engineer Talal Ahmed, a Teach For Qatar alumnus and academic researcher at the ministry's Technical Office.

Inspired by his participation in Teach For Qatar's Leaders Pathway programme, the initiative expanded rapidly, gaining recognition at Qatar Sustainability Weeks in 2020, 2021, and 2022. In 2023, STEAMathon Qatar secured first place in the Saif al-Muallim Award, awarded by Teach For Qatar, ExxonMobil, and Qapco, for its sustainability and impact as an alumni-led project.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education officially adopted the program as a national initiative, expanding its reach from Grade 1 to Grade 12, impacting tens of thousands of students and teachers.