The Qatar Scientific Club’s celebration of the 35th anniversary of its founding was an occasion to confirm the continuation of its success path, and to move forward with the implementation of its future projects, which depend on robots, artificial intelligence and sustainable inventions, in line with the Qatari environment and the clubs strategy until 2030, which is in line with the strategy of Qatar Research, Development and Innovation Council.
This was confirmed by the Executive Director of Qatar Scientific Club, Engineer Rashid al-Rahimi, in an exclusive statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA) on the club’s anniversary celebration.
He pointed out that the club is currently working on implementing scientific, awareness and national activities that contribute to enhancing the participation of Qatari youth in local and international events, and enhancing their role in annual events and programmes, in addition to strengthening co-operation with youth centres, enhancing youth capabilities and enabling them to implement scientific projects, and developing the level of their scientific and technological capabilities in order to attract and motivate them to participate in scientific programmes.
Al-Rahimi added that the club is working on implementing a number of targeted initiatives.
He praised the efforts of the founders of the club and those who came after them over 35 years, until the club turned into a scientific institution that promotes learning, innovation and research in the fields of science and technology.
He stressed that the club seeks to provide a creative and attractive scientific environment that enables young people to learn and innovate to serve the Qatari community. It also aims to develop infrastructure to enhance the best scientific practices for young people, motivate them to innovate, and support their ideas and projects.
He stressed the clubs keenness to provide high-quality content, select accredited programmes and experienced and skilled trainers to provide scientific content in professional ways and methods for all members of the club, in addition to providing specialised expertise to friendly and co-operating institutions in a professional framework.
Al-Rahimi explained that the club progressed a lot throughout its history and is in constant development, witnessing the successive achievements and medals won by the club’s members year after year at the level of regional and international exhibitions.
He referred to the development of the club’s infrastructure, which is currently divided into three main technical centres covering different segments and age groups.
In order to monitor the progress of the club over 35 years, and the most important stations that it passed through, QNA met with a number of the founders of the club to get acquainted with the march of this scientific edifice, and the most important challenges it faced over the past 35 years.
Engineer Issa Rabia al-Kuwari, one of the founders of Qatar Scientific Club, said the idea of founding came at the initiative of Qatari youth, who have scientific ambitions and an urgent desire for innovation and invention.
He added that the shift was to scientific specialisation instead of youth centres, as the club was launched in 1987 as part of the Al-Gharafa Youth Centre at the time, in Souq Al-Ali area, and the first president of the club was HE Dr Ibrahim bin Saleh al-Nuaimi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
Engineer and innovator Rashid Ali Ibrahim, one of the founders of Qatar Scientific Club, recalls that the real start of the club came with Qatari innovations. The first exhibition to be held in Doha at the level of the Co-operation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf was in 1987, and we won the first places, for inventing a project to protect cars from accidents on highway bends, and inventing a solar-powered car at the time, among others.
He added that the club then moved to a building in Fareej Al Nasr on Doha Expressway, and then to a larger building in As-Salata area on the fourth Ring Road, which witnessed the presentation of many activities and scientific programmes targeting youth and children, and the club was a destination for many lovers of innovation.
For his part, Engineer Mohamed Yaqoub al-Sayed, one of the founders of Qatar Scientific Club and the former president of the club, said the club faced many challenges during the founding period, the most important of which was how to convince officials of the existence of a specialised scientific club, because the idea was new at the time, and we worked hard to introduce the clubs activities through radio and television programmes and direct meetings with parents, in order to attract innovative young people, and there was a problem that most of the Qatari students go to the literary sections rather than the scientific sections in the educational path.
He added that they tried to convince the officials that the presence of the club increases the number of students enrolled in the scientific departments, and thus the club contributed to introducing the importance of scientific disciplines, and began moving towards scientific disciplines, and also contributed to the dissemination of scientific culture because they wanted the club to be a scientific institute that sponsors innovators and those interested in science.