Timeline – Qatar Foundation International

20
09

Operations start up in Washington, DC.
Arabic language programs begin at partner high schools in Boston, MA, and Washington, DC.
QFI supports the launch of Qatar Foundation’s inaugural World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Doha, Qatar.

Learn more here.
We partner with the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, to digitize its collection of Islamic manuscripts.

20
10

Physical and virtual exchanges connect Qatari and American students in QFI partner schools.
QFI, Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar, and Green Gulf celebrate Earth Day in Doha—the first recognition of this global event in Qatar.
Arabic language programming begins in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

20
11

The online forum Youth Allied to Learn, Lead, and Help (YALLAH) launches to facilitate communication among students in both Arabic and English—inspired by two students from Doha and Boston who met on a QFI exchange trip.
The Dora Johnson Awards launch to increase the presence of Arabic teachers at the ACTFL Annual Conference.

Learn more about the awards here.
Classroom Resource Enrichment Grants (CREGs)—initially called Teacher Initiative Grants (TIGs)—provide teachers with funding to supplement their teaching about the Arab world.

Learn more and apply here.

20
12

QFI begins offering summer teacher-training institutes with partner universities and other institutions, and pilots the Teacher Fellowship Program.
Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, visits the first QFI partner elementary school, Hamilton Heights in New York City.
To increase access to outstanding Arabic language summer-immersion programs, QFI creates a grant for which the programs can apply in order to offer need-based scholarships for students.

Learn more here.
Locally organized teacher councils for Arabic educators begin in Chicago, New York, Southern California, and Washington, DC.

Learn more here.
First year of QFI’s annual participation in Qatar Day at Virginia Commonwealth University.
We partner with Khan Academy and Intel to dub and subtitle 600 educational math-and-science videos in Arabic.

20
13

Working with the Municipal Secretariat of Education, Rio de Janeiro, QFI expands school programs in Brazil.
We partner with P.S/I.S. 30 Mary White Ovington School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to host New York City’s only Arabic dual-language immersion program.

Read the story here.
QFI patents the unique transliteration tool Q-Wheel (Madar Al-Huruf), created by a Virginia Commonwealth University–Qatar graduate in 2011, and develops an online app.

Learn more about it here.

20
14

QFI Resource Portal, an open education platform for educators to find resources for the teaching of Arabic and about the Arab world, goes live.

Learn more and access it here.

20
15

We offer education awards to support graduating high-school seniors who seek to continue their study of Arabic and the Arab world as college freshmen.
QFI signs a memorandum of understanding with the Institute for Innovation for Second Language Education (IISLE)–Edmonton Public Schools in Canada to connect its long-standing and well- established Arabic immersion and language programs with schools and educators in our network.
We launch “I Speak Arabic,” our advocacy campaign for the benefits of language-learning, which is rebranded “Speak Arabic,” with new videos and resources, in late 2019.

Visit the site here.
After five years of discussions with educators, school leaders, language experts, and students, we formally announce our “Arabic for Communication” approach to teaching and learning the language.

Read the full statement here.
We partner with Annenberg Learner to add Arabic to its Teaching Foreign Languages Library.
A memorandum of understanding is signed with the Arabic Immersion Magnet School (AIMS), the first fully dual-immersion Arabic school in the US.

20
16

We develop the Mosaic Tilemaker App to introduce students to fundamental concepts of Islamic art and architecture—and to help them design their own tiles.

Check out the app here.
Her Excellency Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation, visits Washington Latin Public Charter School, one of QFI’s original partner schools.

20
17

Continuing the work of Qatar Foundation and the British Council, QFI expands into schools across the UK.

Learn more about the Arabic in the UK here.
We partner with Duke University to offer an annual “Dimensions of the Middle East” summer institute for educators.

Learn more about the workshop here.
Teacher Professional Development grants help enhance secondary-school teachers’ understanding of the Arab world by reducing the expense of attending relevant workshops and conferences.

Learn more and apply here.
We establish the Arabic Honor Society to foster and support student engagement in Arabic language study at the high-school level.

Learn more on how to participate here.
Along with ETS and Microsoft Education, QFI partners with the Salzburg Global Seminar on the Education for Tomorrow series.

Read the full press release here.
Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser leads a roundtable discussion of QFI’s newly launched Study of Adolescent Lives after Migration to America (SALaMA) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and visits our partner school P.S. 261 in Brooklyn, NY.

20
18

QFI and the Middle East Outreach Council (MEOC) sponsor the Middle East Book Awards to increase awareness of Arab authors and books about the Middle East by offering those books at no cost to educators and their classrooms.

Learn more here.
Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) and QFI launch three annual cultural-immersion experiences for educators, including travel to Qatar and Oman.

Learn more here.
In partnership with four leading universities, QFI introduces the cohort-based Teacher Leadership Program (TLP), a year-long professional development for teachers on topics related to the Arab world.

Learn more here.
Working with the Green Bronx Machine, QFI creates a virtual-exchange program for two classrooms in Qatar and Brooklyn, NY, to explore urban agriculture and promote student health and community-building.

Learn more here.
QFI’s programs expand to Germany, where we partner with the German Arabic Friendship Society (DAFG) and Give Something Back to Berlin (GSBTB).

20
19

Brown University and QFI partner to expand educators’ access to “Teaching about the Middle East Region” workshops.
QFI develops a virtual-exchange (VE) toolkit and partners with Participate.com to create a one-stop VE professional-development site offering no-cost courses for educators.

Learn more here.
The Classroom Connections grants provide funding for secondary schools with Arabic programs to connect virtually with peers in the Arab world and to travel abroad to Qatar and other Arabic-speaking countries.

Learn more here.
Project Explorer, Intuitive Content, and QFI partner on the Crash Test World kids’ show that explores major issues confronting families in cities around the world—including Berlin, New York City, and Doha.

QFI 10th
Anniversary!

Operations start up in Washington, DC.

Arabic language programs begin at partner high schools in Boston, MA, and Washington, DC.

QFI supports the launch of Qatar Foundation’s inaugural World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Doha, Qatar.

We partner with the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, to digitize its collection of Islamic manuscripts.

Physical and virtual exchanges connect Qatari and American students in QFI partner schools.

QFI, Carnegie Mellon University-Qatar, and Green Gulf celebrate Earth Day in Doha—the first recognition of this global event in Qatar.

Arabic language programming begins in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The online forum Youth Allied to Learn, Lead, and Help (YALLAH) launches to facilitate communication among students in both Arabic and English—inspired by two students from Doha and Boston who met on a QFI exchange trip.

The Dora Johnson Awards launch to increase the presence of Arabic teachers at the ACTFL Annual Conference.

Classroom Resource Enrichment Grants (CREGs)—initially called Teacher Initiative Grants (TIGs)—provide teachers with funding to supplement their teaching about the Arab world.

QFI begins offering summer teacher-training institutes with partner universities and other institutions, and pilots the Teacher Fellowship Program.

Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, visits the first QFI partner elementary school, Hamilton Heights in New York City.

To increase access to outstanding Arabic language summer-immersion programs, QFI creates a grant for which the programs can apply in order to offer need-based scholarships for students.

Locally organized teacher councils for Arabic educators begin in Chicago, New York, Southern California, and Washington, DC.

First year of QFI’s annual participation in Qatar Day at Virginia Commonwealth University.

We partner with Khan Academy and Intel to dub and subtitle 600 educational math-and-science videos in Arabic.

Working with the Municipal Secretariat of Education, Rio de Janeiro, QFI expands school programs in Brazil.

We partner with P.S/I.S. 30 Mary White Ovington School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to host New York City’s only Arabic dual-language immersion program.

QFI patents the unique transliteration tool Q-Wheel (Madar Al-Huruf), created by a Virginia Commonwealth University–Qatar graduate in 2011, and develops an online app.

QFI Resource Portal, an open education platform for educators to find resources for the teaching of Arabic and about the Arab world, goes live.

We offer education awards to support graduating high-school seniors who seek to continue their study of Arabic and the Arab world as college freshmen.

QFI signs a memorandum of understanding with the Institute for Innovation for Second Language Education (IISLE)–Edmonton Public Schools in Canada to connect its long-standing and well- established Arabic immersion and language programs with schools and educators in our network.

We launch “I Speak Arabic,” our advocacy campaign for the benefits of language-learning, which is rebranded “Speak Arabic,” with new videos and resources, in late 2019.

After five years of discussions with educators, school leaders, language experts, and students, we formally announce our “Arabic for Communication” approach to teaching and learning the language.

We partner with Annenberg Learner to add Arabic to its Teaching Foreign Languages Library.

A memorandum of understanding is signed with the Arabic Immersion Magnet School (AIMS), the first fully dual-immersion Arabic school in the US.

We develop the Mosaic Tilemaker App to introduce students to fundamental concepts of Islamic art and architecture—and to help them design their own tiles.

Her Excellency Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation, visits Washington Latin Public Charter School, one of QFI’s original partner schools.

Continuing the work of Qatar Foundation and the British Council, QFI expands into schools across the UK.

We partner with Duke University to offer an annual “Dimensions of the Middle East” summer institute for educators.

Teacher Professional Development grants help enhance secondary-school teachers’ understanding of the Arab world by reducing the expense of attending relevant workshops and conferences.

We establish the Arabic Honor Society to foster and support student engagement in Arabic language study at the high-school level.

Along with ETS and Microsoft Education, QFI partners with the Salzburg Global Seminar on the Education for Tomorrow series.

Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser leads a roundtable discussion of QFI’s newly launched Study of Adolescent Lives after Migration to America (SALaMA) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and visits our partner school P.S. 261 in Brooklyn, NY.

QFI and the Middle East Outreach Council (MEOC) sponsor the Middle East Book Awards to increase awareness of Arab authors and books about the Middle East by offering those books at no cost to educators and their classrooms.

Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) and QFI launch three annual cultural-immersion experiences for educators, including travel to Qatar and Oman.

In partnership with four leading universities, QFI introduces the cohort-based Teacher Leadership Program (TLP), a year-long professional development for teachers on topics related to the Arab world.

Working with the Green Bronx Machine, QFI creates a virtual-exchange program for two classrooms in Qatar and Brooklyn, NY, to explore urban agriculture and promote student health and community-building.

QFI’s programs expand to Germany, where we partner with the German Arabic Friendship Society (DAFG) and Give Something Back to Berlin (GSBTB).

Brown University and QFI partner to expand educators’ access to “Teaching about the Middle East Region” workshops.

QFI develops a virtual-exchange (VE) toolkit and partners with Participate.com to create a one-stop VE professional-development site offering no-cost courses for educators.

The Classroom Connections grants provide funding for secondary schools with Arabic programs to connect virtually with peers in the Arab world and to travel abroad to Qatar and other Arabic-speaking countries.

Project Explorer, Intuitive Content, and QFI partner on the Crash Test World kids’ show that explores major issues confronting families in cities around the world—including Berlin, New York City, and Doha.