Moroccan twins win electrical engineering award in Montreal, Canada

The Moroccan twins, Ibtisam and Ikram Benzian, were awarded two prizes for their excellent graduation projects in electrical engineering at Polytechnique Montreal, a university in Quebec, Canada.

Ibtisam won the first prize for two separate projects that she accomplished in electrical engineering courses, while Ikram was ranked third after being selected by the jury.

The jury had the candidates sit for multiple tests before declaring the names of the winners.

According to the school’s website, the Moroccan twins were rewarded at a special ceremony held on 16 August at the prestigious École Polytechnique de Montréal, which was founded in 1873.

Ikram Benzian explained in an interview with Quds Press that she and her sister managed to achieve this result through their own effort and that they are proud that they won a scientific award at an international university at a time some members of the Moroccan community have been involved in terrorist acts.

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Ikram, who is her sister’s roommate in Montreal, said that her parents are supporting them financially in order to complete their studies and that they have received no contact from the Moroccan authorities either from the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or from the Moroccan Embassy in Canada, except for publishing their achievement in newspapers.

There are no accurate statistics about the number of Moroccans living abroad, or the number of students, but unofficial statistics indicate that the number of Moroccan citizens in Canada may be tens of thousands.