Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 08.03.2017 - The Islamic Development
Bank Group (IsDB) is organizing a two day STEAM Innovation Challenge
workshop in collaboration with King Abdullah University for Science
and Technology.

The workshop (stands for science technology engineering arts and
mathematics (STEAM), which is intended for University students in
Saudi Arabia, will be organized during the period from 17-18 March
2017 at IsDB Headquarters in Jeddah.

STEAM Innovation Challenge is designed to support students creating
solutions to solve local, regional and global problems. Having
students engage in mixed interdisciplinary teams a great opportunity
for creating new innovative concepts that could bring about
significant change for a partner organization.

The suggested challenges include areas around food security and water,
health, and education. It is a short-timed challenge, started and
completed over a 48 hour intensive time period, and a team building
exercise amongst mixed students from a number of chosen universities
in Saudi Arabia. Each team will have one of the three challenges
randomly chosen for them to work on. Each challenge topic will have a
semi-final on the second day with one winner in each category, who
will then go on to compete against each other for the grand prize.

The student teams will be given some guidance on the first day as well
as a short presentation template to use during the competition part of
the program, as well as mentors from the partner organization and from
the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center staff and IDB Group international
mentor pool.

The IsDB will be offering the first, second and third Prize winning
teams cash prizes, which will be shared equally amongst the team
members. The Winning three teams will be offered the chance to present
their solutions at the IsDB Annual Meeting, which will be held in
Jeddah in May 2017.

There is also an opportunity for members of the winning teams to
receive an internship with IsDB during the summer of 2017 to continue
to work on their ideas with mentoring support from IsDB.

The STEAM Innovation Challenge concept was beta tested first in April
2016 with the first STEAM sponsor IsDB and involved KAUST students
working in mixed, interdisciplinary teams alongside students from
collaborating Saudi Universities.

The original STEAM Innovation Challenge was a key part of the KAUST
Spring Enrichment Program (SEP). Since then, another STEAM was
delivered in partnership with Dow Chemical involving 151 students from
seven Saudi universities, 20 mentors and various guests during January
2017.