RIYADH: Three students out of a pool of 1,240 schoolchildren from 165 schools across the Kingdom were declared winners of the Sony Creative Scientific Award in a ceremony organized at the King Fahd Culture Center here on Wednesday night.
The award, designed to promoted science skills, was announced by Modern Electronic Company, a subsidiary of Al-Faisaliah Group, as part of their corporate social responsibility.
Speaking on the occasion, Prince Mohammed A. Al-Faisal, president of Al-Faisaliah Group, said: “Today, as we announce winners of 2009 award, I would like to emphasize that our main objective is not the prize itself, but to ignite the spark of scientific curiosity and creativity in the minds of our beloved young students, as more than 75 percent of our population are youths. Therefore, we have to pay great attention to the advancement of science in order to promote a new generation of young scientists.”
The event was attended by Prince Bandar bin Turki, president of the Directorate of Education and Culture of the Saudi Armed Forces, and Osamu Muira, Dubai-based managing director of Sony Gulf.
Referring to the details of the award, Prince Mohammed said the jury faced a very difficult task in selecting the winners because of the large numbers of highly sophisticated projects.
Yusuf Hijazi from Omar Bin Wahabat School won the first place for his tree-cutter project. Besides a cash prize, he will also be sent to Japan to visit the Sony facilities. Abdullah Saggaabi from the same school won second place for his alarm system. Sami Al-Shahri from Al-Bazaar School won the third place for his smart magnetic card project.
The Sony Creative Science Awards was initiated in 2005. “Because of its aim to promote creativity in children and help make science learning fun and interesting, it has become one of the most popular competitions among schools in the Kingdom,” said Prince Mohammed.
The eagerly awaited awards ceremony at King Fahd Culture Center included a science show. Japanese scientist Soichi Nishimura highlighted a series of short experiments on various scientific theories and their applications that thrilled the audience.
