A Saudi PhD scholarship student in Australia, Wisam Hassan Sabban, has won a gold medal from the International Federation of Inventors' Associations (IFIA) for inventing a solar and wind-powered drone. Sabban successfully designed and manufactured the prototype “Al-Saqr Al-Akhdar 1” (The Green Falcon 1), the first such aircraft to monitor Australian forest fires. He said that he planned, since the beginning of his doctorate studies in 2011, to develop artificial intelligence for the plane so that it flies using the least amount of energy. When completed, the plane will be able to plan its route on the basis of previous data on the climate in the region where it is required to fly. Sabban hopes the Kingdom will be able to use the drone to monitor pilgrim and traffic movement in Mina and Arafat during the Haj season and areas prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, as well as land and sea search and rescue operations. Sabban has won several other prizes. These include the prize for the best recommended project in the Electronics Design Contest (EDN 2009); prize for the best six projects to solve the problem of Australian forest fires (RMIT) (the prototype was displayed in Melbourne Museum for six months); gold medals from the International Federation of Inventors' Associations (IFIA); shield of appreciation presented by the Minister of Higher Education; Genius Gold Medal among 750 participants representing 31 countries in an exhibition held in Germany; gold medals from iENA 2011 Exhibition; the selection of Al-Saqr Al-Akhdar 1 Project as one of the best projects using environmentally-friendly energy; audience voting prize for the best engineering project in the contest “Engineering in the service of humanity” for his invention “TextoBraille”; and the prize for the best doctorate student (November 2011) at the Queensland University of Technology. __
