The Sony Creative Science Awards 2009, the 5th edition of the hugely popular community initiative of Modern Electronics Co. Ltd (MECL) and Sony Gulf FZE (SOGUL), in co-partnership with the Directorate of Education & Culture for the Saudi Armed Forces, was announced at a press conference here. Registration for the Award is open for all Central Province (Riyadh based) Schools. The Sony Creative Science Award, the first-ever initiative of its kind in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, promotes creativity amongst children and opens their minds to scientific curiosity. The 5th edition of this prestigious awards will reward the first 10 best innovative implementations of a scientific principle in a toy, created by the students. Prince Mohammed K. Al Faisal said: “Today, as we announce this award for the year 2009, hundreds of students will compete to be finalists. However, our end goal is not the prize, but to ignite the spark of scientific curiosity and creativity in the minds of our young students. For knowledge when caged in the classroom remains simply a transfer of information, yet education is much more than that, for it is the opening up of new categories and frontiers.” Acknowledging the role of The Directorate of Education & Culture of the Saudi Armed Forces, Mr. Taro Kimura said, “It's our joint aim at MECL/SONY and Ministry of Education & Culture of the Saudi Armed Forces to engage children's imagination with science, knowing that scientific curiosity in children can make learning fun. As a multinational consumer electronics company, we strongly believe in research and have been known for our breakthrough technologies. The Sony Creative Science Award is the regional roll-out of our global program that encourages schools and students to develop a scientific approach at an early age.” Bader Al Swailem Managing Director of MECL/SONY added that ‘ In the past four years that it has been held, this award has challenged students in Saudi Arabia to design and construct creative toys. It's extremely encouraging to know that this year, a record of approximately 1280 scientific project entries are to be received from various public and private schools in the Riyadh region, as compared to the 733 entries received last year. On14th Mar'2009, we will be starting-off the 1st level training for two teams of school teachers from the girls section as well as the boys section from the various schools in the Riyadh region. This year (2009), we will also be setting another record for a planned training program to train almost 180 school teachers from various public and private schools in the Riyadh region. Almost 44% of these teachers will be female teachers. Given that this competition creates an opportunity to combine scientific knowledge with innovation and creativity, it is indeed heartening that record numbers of our students and teachers are participating in this scientific activity every year' The award will see the distribution of 10 Grand prizes to students, with the first prize winner receiving SR 10,000, the second receiving SR 7,000 and the third winning SR 5,000. The 4th to 10th winner will each receive a special gift voucher for SR 1,000 to be redeemed at any Sony showroom in the Kingdom. Also, the school with the most entries will receive a prize voucher for SR 5,000 while there is an award for the teacher with the most participating students. This year (2009) will also see a record high participation strength of approx 800 boy and 480 girl students from both private & public schools in Riyadh region. The Directorate of Education & Culture of the Saudi Armed Forces will work closely with the Ministry of Education (MoE) for the successful running of the Sony Creative Science Award 2009. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education & Culture of the Saudi Armed Forces will allocate a display area at their Centre for the award-winning creative toys. Students will now have the opportunity to visit the centre to have a look at the winning entries.
