Sultan Al-Sughair Saudi Gazette AL-KHOBAR — Winners in the eight edition of the Sony Creative Science Awards were feted Wednesday in an appropriate awarding ceremony held at the Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Science and Technology Center (SCITECH) in Al-Khobar. The ceremony was held under the patronage of Prince Mohammad Bin Khalid Al Abdullah Al Faisal and Sony Middle East & Africa (SOMEA) and was attended by the prince, who is the President and CEO of Al-Faisaliah Group; Bader Al-Swailem, Managing Director of Modern Electronics Company Ltd (MECL); Karim Manssour, CEO of Extra (United Electronics Company, UEC); Dr. Khaled Al Sultan, Director of King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Dr. Hassan Al Ahmadi, General Manager of SCITECH, Kaz Makiyama, Sony's chief representative in Saudi Arabia, SOMEA; Khalid Al Zahrani, Acting General Manager of Modern Electronics Company Ltd and a number of other dignitaries as well as media people. “Nothing gives me more joy than encouraging the pursuit of scientific curiosity and creativity among children to make the exploration of the principles of science fun and entertaining,” the prince said during the occasion. “The Sony Creative Science Award supports this mission and it is very heartening to know that this year a record of over 1,530 students have participated in the training sessions from various private and public schools in the Eastern Province.” For the Arabic medium schools, the 1st prize winner for this year was Mohammed Naser Mohammed Al Khanfari from Al Dahran School, who got a gift cheque of SR10,000. The 2nd prize winner was Khaled Majed Al Mahbashi from Ajyal Al Mawaheb School, who got a gift cheque of SR7, 000. The 3rd prize winner was Mosaab Fathi Al Daqqa from Al Khaleej School who got a gift cheque of SR5,000. The award for the best school went to the Ehsan Charity School for the most number of projects submitted. It received a gift cheque of SR 4,000. A gift check of SR2,500 was given to Hatem Abdul Rahman Ali Al Ghamdi, the best teacher awardee, for having trained and helped the highest number of students to submit their completed science project work. From the international schools side, for the English medium schools the 1st prize winner was Mohammed Samer from Al Sharq International School. The 2nd prize winner was Prem Kalyana Kumar from the Indian International School. The 3rd prize for the science project in the English international schools category went to Hani Samhan from Aspier International School. Their prizes were gift cheques of SR1,000 each. The Sony Creative Science Award is an initiative launched by Sony Gulf Company and Modern Electronics Company Ltd. which was initiated in 2005. The contest requires participants to build a scientific project that reflects at least one scientific principle, such as gears, gravity, magnetism, buoyancy among others. The contest aims to encourage innovation, awaken creativity and develop invention skills among young students as well as to make scientific education more fun. The competition targeted intermediate school students — boys and girls — aged between 9 and 15 years old. Interested students, or parents register by calling provided mobile numbers or registering through the website. Following the registration process, students are assigned training days during which they are trained for 3 days on scientific kits from Singapore. On completion of the training, they are given a time frame to prepare and submit their projects. Upon submission, the projects are sorted, the best ones selected, and the students are called for evaluation. Evaluation is then done by a select jury committee. “Since 2005, the Sony creative science program has helped train an impressive cumulative entry of about 7,000 students. This year, a total of almost 1,530 students benefited from the training sessions,” said Makiyama in his speech at the awarding ceremony.
