IDB, KAUST to organize a STEAM Innovation Challenge workshop

The Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB) is organizing a two days 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 March 17-18 at IDB 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 IDB 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 IDB 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 IDB during the summer of 2017 to continue to work on their ideas with mentoring support from IDB. The STEAM Innovation Challenge concept was beta tested first in April 2016 with the first STEAM sponsor IDB 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. — SG