JEDDAH, 14 May 2008 — Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman, Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) and Kingdom Foundation (KF), received the Business Leader of the Year Award from the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) in New York on Monday.
The award was presented to him during the Annual Dinner event of the association which was at the Pierre Hotel. On the occasion Prince Alwaleed was formally introduced to the audience and a documentary about his achievements was also shown.
He delivered a keynote address under the title of "Bridging the Gap: Islam and the West" to a large audience. He called for the need to bridge the gap between the East and the West to encourage more understanding and tolerance between them.
"... to build bridges one has to have towers of strength on both sides of the divide. Programs of Middle East Studies at US universities were few, and mostly financially impoverished, while those of Islamic Studies were rare, weak, and sparse," he said.
"It is for this reason that over the past several years the Kingdom Foundation has been committed to supporting institutions on both sides of the divide to help reduce the tensions that remain between the world of Islam and the West."