‘Mind Games’ test for young

‘Mind Games’ test for young

FIFTY-THREE individuals have already registered for Bahrain’s second annual Festival of the Mind, organisers announced yesterday.

It has incorporated a competition for children this year to encourage further involvement from the community.

The event is being organised by Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibition (MICE) Management and hosted by Intelnacom – Bahrain. It will take place at the Gulf Hotel’s Gulf International Convention Centre, from October 23 to 26.

Schools and universities can enter a team of 16 pupils who will each take turns competing in four disciplines – chess, Scrabble, dhama and sudoku.

Other students can support their team and can also take part in a workshop that introduces each of these games and help newcomers learn how to play.

“The idea of the festival is to encourage learning in a fun way”, said Intelnacom deputy chief executive officer Fuad Mubarak.

“We are encouraging people to understand how to develop the capacity of their mental ability through a number of events that are entertaining and fun for all – we call it ‘Edu-taining’.

The World Memory Championship (WMC) will also take place in Bahrain for the second year running during the festival. Founder Tony Buzan praised Bahrain as a venue and said that he is looking forward to the event.

In addition to the Inter-School’s Challenge, there will also be an Inter-University Challenge where Bahrain universities can also enter teams to take up the challenge in the four disciplines.

Intelnacom will also be helping people gear up for the event by undertaking a Community Challenge in local malls in the weeks leading up to the festival, details of which will be announced shortly.

The disciplines undertaken during the WMC are not culturally or language-specific to ensure a level playing field for international competition. Subjects include spoken numbers, playing cards, dates, abstract images, binary digits, random words and names and faces. Dr Gunther Karsten of Erfurt, from Germany, won the 16th WMC last year, ousting his closest competitor and previous world champion Ben Pridmore of England. Accuracy The annual WMC represents one of the toughest mental tests of all time with competitors being asked to memorise 4,000 digit numbers and recall with absolute accuracy at least 10 packs of cards in one hour. Entry fee is BD2, including registration and workshops. The official handlers are Global Tourism Club, media sponsors are Al Watan Newspaper and the Gulf Daily News (GDN) and diamond sponsors are Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) and Microsoft. For more information visit the website www.worldfestivalofthemind.com. To sponsor the event, please call Carol Melrose on 39608905. aneeqa@gdn.com.bh