KAUST 2012 Winter Enrichment Program begins

Saturday January 14, 2012

Thuwal, Saudi Arabia - The third annual King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Winter Enrichment (WEP) Program began today with an opening keynote by Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of the European Organzation of Nuclear Research (CERN) and KAUST Trustee.

Vice President of Education, Professor James Calvin welcomed the students to the Campus Auditorium and remarked that WEP was very much now in the "nature of KAUST, providing knowledge that will enrich us all."

WEP 2012 will run for two weeks until Sunday January 29 and will feature a diverse line of prominent speakers, classes and activities designed to enrich individuals and broaden horizons.

In addition to the University community, WEP 2012 sees 300 attendees from outside of KAUST including 41 undergraduates from local and international institutions. The undergraduates are winners of an international WEP 2012 poster competition.

Professor Alyn Rockwood, Chair of the WEP Committee, said the two-week program will "enrich all attending with an experience that is unique to KAUST". He explained that the WEP Committee received over 200 high-quality content proposals and hard a hard time choosing selecting which to include.

"It's so exciting to see it all come together again," says Professor Rockwood. "But it wouldn't be possible without volunteers and staff - they work very hard so that this can all happen."

University President Choon Fong Shih introduced Dr. Heuer, noting that his association with the University ran back to the founding days of KAUST. President Shih said: "Science remains the driver of innovation and by engaging across continents, we see science as a global endeavor to address the world's biggest challenges. Both KAUST and CERN are working to meet these."

Dr. Heuer, said that CERN and KAUST shared many similarities. He said: "CERN unites people through innovation, education and research. These three elements bring together people from across cultures all working together to understand the secrets of knowledge and advance science."

During the two-hour keynote, Research at CERN: From the highest energies to the smallest particles. Dr Heuer discussed the birth of the World Wide Web in 1989 at CERN, the search for the Higgs Boson particle and experimenting with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Check back later this week for an extended feature on Professor Heuer and his seminar.

For more information on week one visit here and check out the official WEP 2012 website for all the latest program information. Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook. If you are tweeting about the event please use the hashtag, #wep2012.