Mawhibah programs a success

More than 194,600 youngsters benefited from the programs of Mawhibah (the King Abdullah and His Companions Foundation for Talent and Creativity) during 2010, according to the annual report of the foundation for the year 2010.The Mawhibah envisions to convert the Kingdom over the next 10 years into a knowledge-based society led by talented youth with outstanding educational and intellectual accomplishments, said Education Minister Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, vice president of the foundation, while releasing the report recently.“The desire of the Kingdom’s rightly-guided leaders to transform the Saudi society into a knowledge seeking and inventive society has been the driving force to achieve a qualitative shift in all spheres of life in the Kingdom. Several royal orders were issued to open the gates for investment in gifted youths and support creativity and inventiveness,” the prince said.The foundation has achieved remarkable success since its inception. Its achievements in 2010 include international recognition of the Ibtikar 2010 exhibition in which 40 patents of new inventions were registered in addition to the presentation of 88 inventive activities.More than 100 men and women individual inventors, universities and research institutes participated in the Ibtikar 2010 at the Jeddah Hilton. There were 14 sponsors for the event, which was viewed by more than 60,000 visitors from inside and outside the Kingdom.The showcased inventions covered areas such as nanotechnology, energy and environment protection, medicine and pharmacology, engineering, water desalination, information technology, and telecommunications. The Mawhibah has been striving to develop an environment that enables the gifted youth to utilize their talents for the service and sustainable growth of the country, the prince said.The strategy to achieve this social transformation focuses on encouraging the gifted youths including women to generate new ideas especially in the area of science and technology, the prince said.The achievements listed in the report included the participation of 36 schools from Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Alkhobar, Jubail and Dhahran in Mawhibah programs. It also offered 567 student scholarships while the report put the number of students actually benefiting from the school programs at 2,500.Another listed achievement was the preparation of advanced enrichment curriculum targeting gifted students. The Mawhibah was also instrumental in Saudi students winning medals and prizes in international scientific contests such as the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, Balkan Olympiad, International Mathematics Olympics and another science exhibition in Germany.The minister thanked all the national and international experts and companies for their efforts to help the foundation achieve its goals.Speaking on the occasion, Mawhibah Secretary-General Khaled bin Abdullah Al-Sabti said, the report contained all the important activities of the foundation in 2010 after it began implementing its first five-year plan. He said a project management office was tracking the implementation and progress of the Mawhibah projects.With the collaboration with the Ministry of Education, the Mawhibah offers educational scholarships, prepares high-level educational environment for gifted students in addition to a number of programs for the advanced academic enrichment activities.