Most important in Middle East, one of the world's top five exhibitions

KUWAIT: Under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the 11th International Invention Fair in the Middle East (IIFME) kicked off in Kuwait late Sunday. Deputy Minister of Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah represented His Highness the Amir at the annual event.

In a keynote speech, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah said he was proud to represent His Highness the Amir during the opening of the 11th fair, which was organized by the Kuwait Science Club for years. He regarded it as the most important fair in the Middle East and one of the world's top five exhibitions, drawing representatives of 43 countries, along with GCC invention officials. He urged Kuwaiti young people to capitalize on this year's gathering and to carry on excellence and distinction in order to better serve their own nation under the wise leadership of His Highness the Amir.

Then, Chairman of the Kuwait Science Club Talal Jassem Al-Kharafi addressed the event by voicing pleasure to welcome 43 countries to the annual fair. He thanked the participating inventors for hailing Kuwait and His Highness the Amir for patronizing the fair. Meanwhile, US Ambassador in Kuwait Lawrence R. Silverman said: "I am very pleased to be here as the US ambassador. We like to think that the United States is a center for innovation but what's important this evening and in the coming days is that Kuwait is the center for innovation around the middle east and especially here. So having the invention fair, the 11th one now, is extremely important."

"I was just speaking with the organizers of this conference and I look forward to hearing about the competitors for the Best Invention and seeing them awarded on Wednesday. But it's not just the people that you are seeing here who brought their inventions but particularly the young audience here in Kuwait and throughout the Middle East to encourage people to be interested in the sciences and to want to bring innovation to Kuwait and the Middle East and throughout the world," he added. "So this is really the message going out to every school in Kuwait (I hope from this conference) and I want to congratulate all the organizers and I want to thank the corporate sponsors and others for pushing this. This is the future of any country. I don't care whether you export oil or you export something else. We all have to diversify our economies and I know that Kuwait is trying to do that, wants to do that and this is part of diversifying the economies, so this is critically important to the future economy of Kuwait," the ambassador noted.

He went on saying: "The last thing I want to say is that we, at the US embassy are working directly with the government of Kuwait, with the Ministry of Information and the National Library to revise legislation that protects what we call Intellectual Property so everything that's created in those rooms, all the inventions, if they create it, they own that idea, they can market that idea, they can commercialize it and not fear that it will be stolen by someone else which is what's very important."

"So we are looking forward, hopefully, in the next couple of months to a strengthening of the laws here, which will not only encourage these young people that I was telling you about who want to innovate and who want to be entrepreneurs but also to encourage further foreign investment in Kuwait as well," he concluded. - KUNA