AUS students shine at Amazon Transcend 2025 with real-world innovation and Gen-Z insights

At the Amazon Transcend 2025 competition, which brought together more than 300 of the UAE’s promising student innovators, two American University of Sharjah (AUS) students secured top spots. Their solutions reflected thoughtfulness, practicality and an ability to solve real-world challenges faced by Amazon MENA.

Samir Daadouch, a first-year computer science student from the College of Engineering, earned second place, while Sanjana Bharwani, a senior majoring in management with a minor in finance from the School of Business Administration, secured third place.

Engineering innovation from day one

For Daadouch, his first semester at AUS was not about easing into the university experience. He decided to take on a real-world challenge through the Amazon competition.  His case centered on a recurring operational issue: sellers submitting inaccurate package dimensions and weights, causing misclassifications, rejections and delivery delays across Amazon MENA.

He developed a Minimum Viable Product, a simple, working prototype designed to prove a concept quickly and under realistic constraints. His mobile system uses the OpenCV Python library to measure package dimensions and a cost-effective machine-learning approach to estimate weight through dimensions and density. The solution remained accurate even in non-ideal environments, delivering more than 95 percent accuracy across phone types, angles and lighting conditions.

“I focused on clarity over complexity,” said Daadouch. “If someone struggles to measure with a ruler, they will not benefit from a complicated camera process. A solution should work instantly, in real scenarios and on any phone.”

After weeks spent building and refining the prototype, Daadouch delivered a 10-minute pitch followed by technical and business questioning from Amazon employees during the competition's final round at the American University in Dubai on October 16, 2025. His work earned him second place, an Amazon gift package and acceptance into the company’s accelerated internship program.

At AUS, Daadouch serves as Technical Lead for the Masters of IoT, Circuits and Resources of Operating Systems Club; Technical Lead and educator with Google Developer Group on Campus; Internal Coordinator for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society; and a member of the Society of Cybersecurity.

“Standing there as a first-year student showed me that effort and consistency make the difference,” he said. “I want to keep pushing myself, connecting engineering with business impact and earning opportunities with leading global tech companies.”

Reimagining Gen-Z commerce

From a business perspective, Bharwani explored how Amazon can make its experience more engaging for Gen Z. Inspired by the Amazon Transcend team's visit to AUS, she entered this case competition and approached the challenge through Amazon’s internal document style.

Her concept, Build + Belong, blended entrepreneurship and social commerce. The Build element empowers young sellers through a Gen Z-focused space with reduced fees, onboarding support and marketing credits, alongside opportunities to collaborate with emerging creators. The Belong element focuses on social discovery through trend-based pages linked to platforms like TikTok and Instagram, curated “10 under AED 50” collections and a Shop with Friends feature that enables shared carts, voting and group savings.

“Gen Z connects through meaning, collaboration and expression,” said Bharwani. “I focused on proposing ideas that young people would genuinely use, backed by a rollout that made sense for Amazon’s structure.”

On campus, Bharwani plays an active role in student life as the Administrative Assistant with the AUS Student Council and Director of External Relations for AUS Model United Nations 2026.

“This experience confirmed how much I enjoy solving problems that involve people, communication and strategy,” she said. “I look forward to a career where I can continue shaping ideas and bringing teams together to execute them.”

Practice-ready learning, real impact

This level of performance does not happen by chance. It reflects the AUS academic experience, where students benefit from a rigorous curriculum, faculty mentorship and opportunities to work on real industry problems.

Learn how AUS shapes tomorrow’s leaders at www.aus.edu/sba and www.aus.edu/cen.