Al-Othman
the Workshop is one of the fruits of King Abdullah’s Program for Research on Nano Technology
A workshop titled “Nano Research in Saudi Universities…the Road Towards Realizing the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ Vision” was organized at King Saud University from the 16th through the 17th of Shawal, 1428 H, corresponding to October 28th -29th , 2007.
His Excellency, the King Saud University Rector, Dr. Abdullah Ibn Abdurrahman Al Othman, undertook to commend the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques’ generous donation of 36 million riyals out of his personal funds in support of research on Nano technology in three Saudi universities (12 million riyals for each).
Dr. Al-Othman pointed out that the above-mentioned workshop is one of the activities organized as part of this program to underscore the accomplishments that have hitherto been made by the three Saudi universities included in this generous donation as well as the achievements by other universities.“ The creation of King Abdullah’s Program for Research on Nano Technology at King Saud University comes as an outcome of the generous donation from the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques –may Allah preserve him – to corroborate Nano research at the university”, the university rector said.
Dr. Al Othman added that “upon receiving the generous donation, the university started setting up an integrated strategic plan and a data base for those interested in the field from among the university staff. Holding meeting after meeting the concerned committee was able to come up with an implementation work plan featuring the preparation for building the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques Institute for Research on Micro Technology (Nano). Furthermore, the implementation work team undertook a number of field trips to different international research centers to keep up with the latest on Nano technology and to establish communication channels with them.”
The university rector pointed out that the university had prepared a summer research scholarship plan for faculty members to encourage closer investigation of the technology and mentioned that “the actual implementation of the plan is taking effect this summer; support was provided to a group of faculty members to spend the summer time in a number of distinguished Nano research centers throughout the world. The committee capitalized in its strategy on the importance of supporting research in this respect and set out to create a program to this effect called the Program for the Support of Research on Applied Nano.”
From his part, the University Rector for Branches Affairs, the supervisor of the Nano technologies and the head of the organizing committee, Dr. Ali Ibn Saeed Al Ghamdi commended the generous donation by the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques pointing out that the support of university research and the follow-up of the new and prospective research applications has always been on the agenda of the Kingdom’s judicious government policies. Dr. Al- Ghamdi added that a donation of such size only comes to substantiate such policies.
Dr. Al Ghamdi also mentioned that the organization of the workshop, “Nano Research in Saudi Universities…the Road Towards Realizing the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ Vision” under the sponsorship of His Excellency, the Minister of Higher Education is meant to examine the achievements that have hitherto been made in Saudi universities and other research sectors both inside the kingdom and abroad in the field of Nano technology as well as to look up to the future of the Nano program in Saudi universities and the educational and research sectors.
The president of the organizing committee pointed out that “the workshop shall be held at King Saud University under the sponsorship of His Excellency the Minister of Higher Education and that a considerable number of specialists in applied Nano have been invited. Therefore, several highly experienced speakers in the field will join the workshop. The most prominent from among such speakers are: Dr. Jean Charles Giribette from Minatech University in france and Professors Theodore Hunch, a Nobel Laureate in Physics for the year 2005, Mounir Naifah, from Illinois State University in the U.S.A., Johansen Schnuk, from Michigan State University, Sami Al Shal, from Richmond University in the U.S.A. and Wee Gau, from Oakland University in New Zealand.
“In addition to the above-mentioned international speakers, there will be Saudi participation as well: three lectures titled ‘the Experience of King Saud University’, ‘the Experience of King Abdulaziz University’ and ‘the experience of King Fahad University for Petroleum and Minerals’ shall be given by Dr. Mohamad Al Salihi, Professor Sami Ali Habib and Professor Zain Yamani, respectively,” Dr. Al-Ghamdi said.