By Aljohara Zarea

JEDDAH — Dallah AlBaraka Holding Company announced on Wednesday the names of the first batch of Saudi students who qualified for its Future Geniuses Program.

The Future Geniuses Program has been launched in 2021 by Dallah AlBaraka in cooperation with the Saleh Abdullah Kamel Humanitarian Foundation (SAKHF). It aims in discovering and adopting Saudi geniuses of both sexes from several specializations.

The program also would contribute to investing in the students' talents and supporting them in their academic journey for postgraduate studies at the most important international universities.

During the ceremony held at Dallah AlBaraka' headquarters in Jeddah, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dallah AlBaraka Holding Company Mohieddin Saleh Kamel said all the successful elements are there to create something great inside Saudi Arabia. He expressed his happiness to celebrate the first batch of the program that contributes to investing in the Saudi youth.

He said that the Future Geniuses Program embodies the objectives of the Human Capacity Development program, one of the programs to achieve the goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030.

Ten students of both sexes out of 158 who passed the initial nominations from all regions of Saudi Arabia and from different universities were qualified and accepted for the program.

The accepted students are: Jaafar Arafat; Zikra Al-Nahari; Thakir Al-Otaibi; Hadeel Faqeeh, Shaima Al-Mohammadi; Mazen Shallal, Manal Al-Muhanna; Walid Shuwaila, Abdulqader Koshak, and Asma Al-Khalaf.

During their entry into the program, the student will pass through 3 steps: the first stage is to apply to a number of international universities, after choosing the appropriate major for them.

As for the second stage, it will be after the students are accepted into the chosen university. The program team will provide the students with several different training courses to prepare them to study abroad in 2023.

While in the third stage, the program team will follow up with the students after they enroll in their international universities, and provide them with support until they graduate and return to Saudi Arabia.

Milad Sebaaly, the CEO of the Global Learning Group, the international partner of the Future Geniuses Program, stated that the specializations in the program were based on the outcome of the market study which identified the required specializations over the coming 10 years in Saudi Arabia.

He clarified that specializations are: Supply Chain Management; AI Machine Learning; Big Data and Data Analytics; Digital Marketing; CyberSecurity; Renewable Energy; Hospitality and Tourism.

While the CEO of Emkan Education, Basma Bushnak said that the students for the Future Geniuses Program have been chosen based on their skills, abilities, as well as on the future needs in the job sector in Saudi Arabia.

From his side, Dr. Roy van den Brink-Budgen, who is a specialist in Critical thinking, noted that critical thinking has emerged to be crucial in most sectors such as in universities, and businesses, while emphasizing that the program has enabled them to select the students on the basis of their critical thinking skills, which would let them solve problems and to be more creative in analyzing things.