By Romana Rubeo 
A Palestinian female engineer, Bayan Abu Salameh, invented a new method for building miniature satellites and named the prototype ‘Palestine 1’, making it the first-ever Palestinian satellite, Al Mayadeen news reported on Sunday.
Abu Salameh, 25, hails from the Palestinian town of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. After receiving her secondary education in Ramallah, she graduated from Birzeit University in 2018. She eventually received her master’s degree with distinction at the Queen Mary University of London in 2021.
“This is the statement of Abu Salama, 25 years old, and an international Palestinian achievement.”
Bayan has devised a new way to build miniature satellites She obtained an honors degree in her master's thesis at the University of Mary, Britain, and named it Palestine-1 pic.twitter.com/Fk4qVUExvg— Hassan Gaza (@HassanGaza10) October 9, 2021
The Palestinian engineer’s achievement was greeted with enthusiasm by Palestinians all over the world, who created the Twitter hashtag #FromPalestineToSpace.
For her part, Abu Salameh thanked all her Palestinian supporters, noting how this achievement is not only hers, but belongs to “the free and great Palestinian people”.
أشكر كل الداعمين وهذا الإنجاز ليس إنجاز بيان وحدها، ولكن إنجاز للشعب الفلسطيني الحر و العظيم. #من_فلسطين_للفضاء#FromPalestineToSpace https://t.co/NGtlLFFc5Q
— Bayan Abusalameh (@BayanAbusalameh) October 9, 2021
Education has always played a fundamental role in Palestinian society. Palestine ranks among countries with the highest literacy rates in the world.
Despite the challenges Palestinian students face living under Israeli occupation, the latest statistics shared by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) show that the illiteracy rate in Palestine “fell in the period 1997-2019 from 13.9% to 2.6%”.
The literacy rate is particularly high among Palestinian women. According to a report published in 2018 by the nonprofit organization The Borgen Project, “Palestinian women are among the most educated in the Middle East,” with “a 94 percent literacy rate”.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in audio-visual and journalism translation.
