Celebrating the Best in Arab Science, Technology, Economics, Society, Literature, Culture & the Media

KUWAIT:  The Arab Thought Foundation, today, announced the names of the 7 winners of the Arab Creativity Awards 2009.  These annual innovation and creativity awards, now in their third year, celebrate the best individuals and organisations in the disciplines of science, technology, the media, literature, economics, civil society and the arts.   

Dr. Soliman Abdel Moniem, Secretary General of the Arab Thought Foundation; and Mr. Hamad Bin Abdullah Al Ammari, Deputy Secretary General of the Arab Thought Foundation and also the Conference’s Executive Director announced the names of the winners in the seven categories during a press conference that was held in Kuwait at the JW Marriott Hotel’s Al-Salhiya Ballroom.

The names and categories are as follows: The Scientific Creativity Award - to the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science; the Technical Creativity Award - to Professor Elias Zerhouni; the Economics Creativity Award is shared between the Bank of Lebanon and the Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh; the Social Creativity Award - to the village of Bil’in in the occupied Palestinian territories; the Media Creativity Award - to journalist Salama Ahmed Salama; the Artistic Creativity Award - to Barmaid Moneim Al’Sawi for his work with community arts project Culturewheel.com and the Literary Creativity Award recipient is novelist Zohra Mansouri.   Each winner will receive US$50,000 in prize money along with a certificate.  

Previous winners have included the musician Nasseer Shama, humanitarian Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, writer Samiha Khreis and celebrated actor Adel Imam.

The Arab Thought Foundation as part of their annual FIKR conference which is being held under the auspices of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah on December 9-10th at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel will also host a gala dinner during the second day of the conference to celebrate the award winners.