A tool developed inside the American University of Kuwait’s engineering college has reached the QS Reimagine Education Awards shortlist, bringing international attention to a practical university challenge: helping students choose the courses they need to graduate.
The American University of Kuwait has announced that RACXpert, an academic advising tool developed within its College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been shortlisted in the Access, Diversity & Inclusion category of the 2026 QS Reimagine Education Awards.
The project was developed by engineering laboratory instructional assistants Eng. Ali Behiry and Eng. Aya Eltoukhy Rezk. According to AUK’s announcement, it grew from their experience of the work involved in checking student records and course requirements during academic advising.
Its purpose is specific: bringing academic progress and available courses together so students and advisors can plan the next semester around outstanding degree requirements. The university says faculty feedback over three years helped shape its development.
The decisions behind a degree
Choosing university courses involves more than selecting subjects that sound interesting. Students must understand how individual classes fit into their degree, which requirements remain outstanding and what they should take next.
AUK’s published advising procedures illustrate that process. First-year and new transfer undergraduates receive support through the Academic Advising Center. Students who declare a major are assigned a faculty advisor through the relevant department.
Before registration, advisors help students identify courses that satisfy general education and degree requirements. Students then receive a Registration Access Control number allowing them to register online.
The university also directs students to Degree Works and its academic catalogue. Students remain responsible for understanding their programme requirements and contacting their advisors before registration.
RACXpert therefore addresses an existing academic process with several moving parts. Its stated role is to support the review and planning work within that process. AUK’s announcement does not describe it as replacing faculty advisors or the university’s existing degree-audit arrangements.
Why an advising tool belongs in an access award
The award category places the project within a wider discussion about what makes education accessible after a student has entered university.
QS describes its Access, Diversity & Inclusion award as recognising initiatives that address barriers to educational participation. Those barriers can be institutional as well as economic, geographical or social.
The organiser’s criteria emphasise how well a project responds to a particular problem and whether it demonstrates educational impact. Technical sophistication alone is not the defining measure.
For an advising project, that creates a practical question: does making academic information easier to navigate translate into better decisions for students?
An award shortlist recognises a project’s progress through an assessment process. Evidence of its effect on advising time, course selection or progression would answer a different question about its everyday use.
AUK’s public announcement does not provide those measurements. It describes the tool’s intended function and development, leaving the scale of adoption and quantified results as useful subjects for a fuller account of the project.
A Kuwaiti project in an international field
The competition extends well beyond university administration. QS reports that the 2026 awards attracted 2,226 entries from 101 countries, assessed by 1,634 judges.
Those figures cover the awards as a whole, rather than RACXpert’s category alone. The entries span areas including assessment, learning design, employability and access.
That breadth gives the AUK story its wider relevance. Educational innovation includes tools developed around the routine decisions students and faculty make throughout an academic year, alongside new approaches to teaching and assessment.
The next stage is international presentation and recognition. AUK says the project will be represented at the London conference in December. For the university’s students, the continuing story will be how the tool operates during actual advising and registration, and what its developers learn from that use.
