Knowledge Summit 2018: Panel Features Winners of Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award

Winners of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award participated in a special session at the Knowledge Summit 2018: "Youth & the Future of the Knowledge Economy", held at the Dubai World Trade Centre on December 5-6.

The winners were the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation, the Institute of International Education (IIE), the Saudi Digital Library (SDL), and the Amersi Foundation.

"Encouraging intellectual freedom is key to making a leap in science. We must support crazy ideas," said Sir Magdi Yacoub, Founder of the Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation. "We look at research into inherited heart diseases by people in Egypt and the region. We must study the genome of the region's population and we now have 1,000 genomes from Egypt."

Meanwhile, Dr Saud Al Salahi, SDL Director General, said: "The Library was launched to provide digital services for all Saudi universities. We have partnered with over 300 publishers to serve 6 million users and reach Vision 2030. In the past, Saudi students sometimes needed to go abroad for research, now they can do it instantly from their smart devices, and Saudi Arabia went from third in the Arab world in terms of university research to first."

Maxmillian Angerholzer III, Executive Vice-President of IIE, noted: "Our mission is to promote the exchange of knowledge, bringing international scholars and students to the US and taking Americans abroad. We believe education is key to combatting global challenges: when two students work together, they immediately overcome cultural barriers to focus on the task at hand. Empowered with knowledge, the youth can change the world."

The Magdi Yacoub Heart Foundation is an Egyptian charity NGO founded to establish a world-class medical centre in Egypt dedicated to cardiovascular surgery, treatment and research, while the IIE is a non-profit global education organisation with 18 offices worldwide seeking to advance scholarship and promote cultural understanding. Meanwhile, the SDL has the largest collection of digital resources in the Arab World, with more than 680,000 digital books and 174 databases for academic articles, and the Amersi Foundation supports causes and charities for education and youth empowerment.

The Knowledge Summit 2018 brings together over 100 experts and decision makers from around the world in more than 45 discussion panels, exploring topics on youth, the knowledge economy, and transforming societies from knowledge consumers to knowledge producers.