JEDDAH, 26 August 2006 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will open a major international conference on gifted students at the Hilton Hotel here today. Some 1,500 experts from within and outside the Kingdom will take part in the five-day event, described first of its kind in the Arab world.
Education Minister Abdullah Bin-Obaid, who is deputy chairman of the King Abdul Aziz & His Companions Foundation for the Gifted, thanked the king for his support to the organization and its programs. “King Abdullah wants to promote a culture of innovative thinking,” he said.
Bin-Obaid said the conference would be a major cultural and scientific event to be witnessed by the Kingdom with participation of prominent scientists and experts from various countries including the United States, Russia, China, Korea, Malaysia and Australia.
The conference, organized by the foundation, aims at developing various professional, scientific and cultural procedures in the field of nurturing gifted students for the benefit of parents as well as specialists. It also aims at developing concepts related to giftedness and creativity. Objectives of the conference include: developing methods to identify the gifted; promoting critical and creative thinking skills; developing methods of nurturing gifted students with special needs and handicaps; identifying personal, social and emotional needs of the gifted; and activating the role of governmental and private institutions in nurturing gifted individuals.
“Nurturing Giftedness ... the Grounding of Bright Future” if the main theme of the conference that will be attended by scientists of international fame including Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, chief executive officer of National Guard Health and president of King Saud ibn Abdul Aziz University for Health Sciences; Robert H. Rines, who holds more than 60 patents; Tracy Cross, a distinguished professor of gifted studies and former executive director of the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities; and George Betts, director of the Center for the Education and Study of the Gifted, Talented and Creative, University of Northern Colorado. Other key speakers include Taisir Subhi-Yamin, associate professor of gifted education and e-learning at the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain; Jiannong Shi, director of the Center for Supernormal Children and the Center of Human Development and Education at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Janchai Yingprayoon, president of International Council of Associations for Science Education (ICASE).
