AUST Inauguration Set for Saudi National Day
THUWAL, September 16, 2009--The countdown has begun — in six days, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) will be inaugurated, ushering in a new era of scientific discovery and education in the Kingdom.
The graduate-level university, which is King Abdullah’s brainchild, opened its doors Sept. 5 to the 400 students who have been admitted from 60 countries around the world to obtain either a Ph.D. or a master’s degree in engineering. There are 70 faculty members to teach them.
The students and faculty were carefully selected to help achieve the university’s goals.
“We have set our sights on reaching the brightest students, brimming with potential, from around the world, ready to learn from their mentors and from one another, ripe to begin making a contribution to the progress of humanity,” said Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali I. Al-Naimi to a delegation of students earlier this year.
The students and faculty also will work on research projects during their time at the university in collaboration with research centers, visiting research programs, an innovation center and partnerships with the private sector.
The university already has nine research centers in the fields of resources, energy and the environment, biosciences and bioengineering, materials science and engineering and applied mathematics and computational science, including a center for solar and alternative energy and water desalination.
These partnerships with the private sector are also part of KAUST’s commitment to economic development and diversification in the Kingdom.
“We in Saudi Arabia need to diversify the base of our economy from dependence on a single commodity,” said Nadhmi A. Al-Nasr, interim executive vice president of Administration and Finance, in a presentation last year. “A knowledge-based economy is the future of Saudi Arabia.”
The university also will be independent and have no ties to any governmental ministry or agency. It will be governed by a board of trustees initially appointed by King Abdullah.
KAUST’s founding president, Professor Choon Fong Shih, was appointed in January 2008 and took up the position last December.
Before joining KAUST, Shih was president and vice-chancellor of the National University of Singapore, which is a highly-regarded research university with a strong entrepreneurial arm — making him an ideal choice as the university’s first president.
KAUST lies 80 kilometers north of Jiddah, the Kingdom’s second-largest city, with a 36-million square-meter campus and community that is on the coast of the Red Sea and nearly completed.
Besides the laboratories and university facilities, the campus is equipped with children’s schools, athletic fields, parks, a golf course, theater and marin