DHAHRAN, 5 April 2008 — Hundreds of people turned out Thursday to see the science projects of the Eastern Province’s top high school students as they competed to become members of the Saudi team for the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) May 11-16 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The event featured 42 individual projects and 10 team projects rated by a group of 12 judges — expert in different scientific disciplines. Held at Dhahran Ahliyya School, it was the third such contest held in recent weeks across the Kingdom to qualify students for the national contest, which will be conducted in Riyadh on Monday.
Sponsored by King Abdul Aziz and his Companions Foundation for the Gifted, the National Talent Training Center and Intel Education, the event is a showcase for Saudi Arabia’s educational reform movement demonstrating students’ abilities to use the scientific method to conduct meaningful research.
Organizers said this year’s Saudi team to the ISEF likely would consist of four individual entrants, two teams and several promising students who will attend as observers.
Taking first place in the competition was 2007 ISEF medalist Ahmed Al-Nuaimi of Dammam. Last year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, his smart shoes for the blind won the young Al-Ansar School student cash prizes and earned him membership in the Association for the Advancement in Artificial Intelligence.
This year, he displayed a pocket vision aid for the blind. Al-Nuaimi’s grandfather is visually impaired, which has prompted the young man to focus his efforts on technology to help ease the elder’s plight.
“As we have more of these events, we see the bar getting higher and higher,” said Mustafa Almahdi, chairman of the judging committee who is a senior analyst for Saudi Aramco’s Long Range Planning Department. He said volunteering to judge the contest was a great chance to help young people.
“I am really enjoying it. It gives us an opportunity to help society, and I think it’s an extension of Saudi Aramco’s commitment to help develop the economy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Almahdi said. “What we’re seeing here is a new generation of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.”
