UAE Science Festival Opens in Al Ain With 158 Projects as Ministry Courts Industry Backers

This year the organisers want the best projects to go further than a prize. Amna Al Saleh, the ministry's assistant undersecretary for curricula and assessment, told Al Bayan that the ministry is connecting student innovations with national and international companies and with government bodies, so that strong projects can be adopted and developed. She named the defence and technology group EDGE as one of the companies taking part, and said contact with these organisations would continue after the festival ends.

That shift fits the UAE's broader effort to build a research workforce. ATRC, the Abu Dhabi body that oversees the emirate's advanced technology research, became a partner in the festival this year. The partnership shapes the content of the competitions and ties them more closely to priority areas of science and technology, WAM said.

How the Competitions Work

The festival has three competitions alongside a scientific conference and a family festival. The main contest, the Emirates Young Scientist competition for grades five to twelve, received 2,651 registrations, according to WAM. One hundred research projects reached the final, split into four categories: technology; biological and environmental sciences; chemical, physical and mathematical sciences; and behavioural and social sciences. Final-round judging follows the criteria of the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the large international student science competition.

The Advanced Technology Pioneers competition for university students and recent graduates drew 707 registrations. From these, 210 participants were chosen in 58 teams, according to WAM. They are building prototypes and simulations for challenges set by three national organisations: the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, EDGE Group and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation. A third competition, Little Innovators, for kindergarten to grade four, received 1,402 entries and has 150 finalists.

Dr Mai Al Mansouri, who directs talent enablement in research and development at ATRC, told Al Bayan that the festival received more than 5,900 applications in total. She said academic grades were not among the selection criteria. Instead, students had to show a working prototype and prove that their solution was effective, rather than present an idea on paper.

One finalist project shows the kind of work involved. Two members of the Emirates Science Club in Dubai, Ali Al Loughani and Rawda Mohammed Al Mansouri, built a robot called IntelliRover that measures radiation, temperature and humidity and uses machine learning to predict radiation levels, Al Bayan reported. The students said they collected more than 5,000 readings over three days in tests on potassium chloride samples, and that adding environmental data cut the average prediction error of one model by more than 45%. They plan to make the robot navigate on its own and to run the AI models on the device.

Education Minister Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri told students at the opening that "you are not just preparing for the future, you will be among those who make it", according to Al Bayan. The programme also includes 80 sessions and workshops on artificial intelligence, robotics, programming and renewable energy, including sessions on the human role in decision-making as AI use grows.

Winners of the Emirates Young Scientist and Little Innovators competitions will be announced at the closing ceremony. Al Saleh said the number of projects chosen to represent the UAE abroad will depend on each international contest's rules. One competition, she said, allows three projects to be selected for international participation.