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Festival of Thinkers begins today

Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development and Chancellor of Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), will inaugurate the 5th Festival of Thinkers at Jumeirah Hotel in Etihad Towers today.

The underlying philosophy of this biennial event, organised by the HCT since 2005, is to encourage promising youth to inspire, innovate and collaborate. The festival is a unique forum for students, global leaders and thinkers to use constructive and lateral thinking while exploring potential solutions for the world’s challenges in an interactive format.

The purpose is to discuss means and ways of fostering creativity beyond cultural boundaries at the scientific and social level by encouraging participants to work together using constructive and lateral thinking while designing possible solutions for the world’s challenges.

Dr Tayeb Kamali, Vice-Chancellor of HCT and chairman of the Organising Committee, said: “We have designed our education model to instill the skills and habits of critical, constructive and creative thinking in our students — first to help them utilise the tremendous opportunities offered by this land of opportunities. Secondly, the world that our next generation is inheriting also comes with some serious challenges that may impact the very foundation of human existence: energy and water crisis, global warming, disease burdens, conflicts of civilisations and many more. To this end, we must equip students with the creative and lateral thinking skills to help them design their future.” —