Culture & Education | Wednesday 4 February, 2015 8:55 am |

Hamad Al-Sheikh, deputy minister of education, inaugurated the Saudi Science and Innovation Festival (SSIF) exhibition here, which put on display 605 innovative projects by young Saudi inventors.

Among other highlights of the event was participation of NASA, the US agency for space research, which is scheduled to launch a rocket with the participation of astronauts.
Intel Global is also taking part through “simulated reality,” which allows guests to have a virtual tour of world heritage sites from the venue of the festival.
The six-day event at Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center (RICEC) will feature 30 scientific activities with international speakers on global science festival.
They will address the event with the support of King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity, Mawhiba, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Saudi Aramco and Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).

At the opening session, a large number of students were exposed to the state-of-the-art technology in various fields.
“The festival aims to show innovative products in an exciting way to promote creative thinking and scientific research,” said the head of the organizing committee Hamdan Al-Mohammad.
He said such an event will encourage young people to continue their education in various scientific disciplines, with the involvement of school students in science outside the classroom, and promote scientific dialogue between specialists and researchers.

Outlining the event program, he said the festival is divided into three main components during which 605 participants will be competing in the Innovation Olympiad in 17 scientific areas, including scientific research and innovation, represented by 762 students who were qualified for the final round. They were short-listed out of 116,000 participants who competed in various stages.

German student Kristen Knubel, 18, will participate with Saudi students in the installation and launch of a train used in the entertainment cities globally with a total length of 40 meters on rails and 7-meter structure to be presented for the first time outside Germany.