Qatar is not only laying foundations of a world-class research and education system in the country but also through different initiatives run by Qatar Foundation is promoting education in the region and beyond.
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) since its foundation in 1995 has done a tremendous job to promote and protect education across the globe.
Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) of Qatar Foundation has supported 4,000 projects through various funding programmes and the number of key investigators has increased from 200 to 3,000 over the years, said Executive Director of QNRF, Dr. Abdul Sattar Al Taie.
Speaking at a discussion held as part of the ‘Empowering Innovation’ event, he said: “We have the right recipe to have success in research and innovation. We are not doing research for the sake of it, but to address local and global challenges. We have supported to build talent as part of its ongoing commitment to establish Qatar as a knowledge based economy.”
QNRF was established in 2006 and its programmes cover basic disciplines emphasised through Qatar National Research Strategy (QNRS): energy and environment, computer science and information and communications technology, health and social sciences, and the arts and humanities. According to Dr. Al Taie, more than 10,000 school students, 4,000 undergraduates and 1,200 post-graduate fellows benefit from the QNRF. Also, 10,000 research papers have been published.
First day of the “Empowering Innovation” event also included a recognition ceremony which acknowledged distinguished creator, inventor, and innovation of the year 2020. Distinguished Creator of the Year 2020 was awarded to Dr. Kareem Darwish of Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). Distinguished Inventor of the Year 2020 was awarded to Dr. Nimir El Bashir of QF partner university Texas A&M University at Qatar. Innovation of the Year 2020 was awarded to ‘Automatic Generation of Personas’.
Meanwhile, the WISE Awards, created by the World Innovation Summit for Education at Qatar Foundation has announced six projects addressing global educational challenges as winners of the 2020 award. There were 625 applications from all over the world this year.
Since the creation of the program in 2009, WISE has received over 4,500 applications from more than 150 countries including Australia, Finland, Chile, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Qatar resulting in 72 winning projects.
The six projects will be celebrated through an online event on October 28, 2020, including an awards ceremony and discussions with the winners and innovators from the WISE community around the topic titled Building the Future of Education: Conversations with Resilient Innovators. And, in addition to publicity and networking opportunities, each project will receive $20,000 (US).
