Papers/Presentations
Building Community Aspirations through Creative and Effective Public Engagement
‘Building community aspirations through creative and effective public engagement’ will investigate how to reach and engage local communities and increasingly diverse audiences in the opportunities that science and technology hold. This panel session will explore how initiatives such as museums, science centers, festivals and outreach programs can build skills, knowledge and aspiration, resulting in positive and long lasting change.
This session will explore:
- What is social responsibility? Who is social responsibility for? Why should we, as experience developers and operators, be motivated to make change?
- How can we respond to the big challenges facing our communities? How do we choose and focus?
- What skills, knowledge and motivations should we encourage?
- How do we partner and work with others to achieve results?
- What techniques can be incorporated to reach and engage?
- How do we build capacity to deliver such initiatives?
- How can we use engagement to help empower people, broaden attitudes and foster relationships between scientists and wider society?
- What does success look like? What does failure look like?
- How do we measure impact?
Moderated by Mr. Owain Davies, this session will offer a range of perspectives and focus.
Massa Mufti will set the context, talking about the vital role of informal education in achieving 21st Century goals for the MENA region. Massa will share case studies and propose models for how we can meaningfully shape educational reform.
Eng. Amr Al Madani will discuss how the work of TalentSlKCA is offering a different approach to STEM learning in Saudi Arabia, with the audience including not only students and families but also volunteers and staff. Amr will be joined by Reham Al Doss. Reham has recently led the delivery of the Noor Festival of Light at Mishkat Interactive Center for Atomic & Renewable Energy, and will share the impact and lessons learned from this event.
In relation to Qatar Museums’ Family and Schools Programmes, Claire Dobbin will discuss the opportunities and benefits of an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on science as a way in to art and art as a way in to science.
Throughout, the speakers will highlight experienced challenges and share the lessons they have learned, giving the audience practical pointers for their own organizations.
Reaching Out to Wider Audiences through Volunteers and Outreach
‘Reaching out to wider audiences through national programs’ will look at case studies of successful outreach and volunteer programs, and examine the objectives, outcomes and impact of each of these innovative approaches. Exciting, unusual strategies for delivering off-site programming to large, diverse, and often disadvantaged audiences will be presented. The session will discuss how such initiatives are planned, developed and delivered, and will highlight the benefits presented both to the audiences and demonstrate how they strengthen the mission of the centers running them.
This session will ask:
• Why is outreach important? What barriers does it overcome, and which audiences does it reach most effectively?
• What outreach techniques are most powerful?
• What are the challenges of outreach, and how can they be overcome?
• How do you create a strong outreach programme that complements and strengthens your onsite activity?
Neama Al Marshoudi will present the initiatives of the Abu Dhabi Technology Development Committee (TDC). Through events such as the annual Abu Dhabi Science Festival, and Lema? the outreach program which reaches 35,000 students per year in their schools, TDC has impacted hundreds of thousands of Emiratis and residents of the UAE. Neama Al Marshoudi, TDC’s Manager of Content will discuss how and why TDC has committed to developing and fostering partnerships with other government agencies, non-profits and organizations dedicated to a similar mission.
Halah Murtadha will showcase the innovative outreach approach taken by the Mishkat Interactive Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On opening in 2011, Mishkat Interactive Center was a venue for student and group visits. Fast forward to today, and Mishkat has developed into dynamic platform for STEM initiatives designed to broaden and maximise its reach and impact. Halah Murtadha will share how Mishkat has developed its outreach strategy, going beyond the boundaries of the science center to bring a flavour of Mishkat and informal learning to schools and hard to reach audiences in Riyadh.
Sarah Khalil will present how following over 10 years of grassroots intervention all over Palestine State, Al Nayzak Organization for Supportive Education and Scientific Innovation has accumulated in-depth experience working with youth and children who formulated a loyal network of support, represented in the “volunteers unit”; a network of over 500 of Al Nayzak’s graduates who work in close partnership with the organization to support its programs. This session will address the formulation of the volunteers unit, building profitable relationships, and harvesting these relationships to promote, and expand the organization reach within the community. The session will also address different levels of the volunteers unit’s model and the possibilities it offers, from research and development, to translation and training. The volunteers unit thus becomes an incubator to enhance youth’s capacities and a platform for youth to give back to their communities, and building future leaders.
Nawaf AL–Rudiani will talk about The Scientific Center as a unique establishment in Kuwait and one of the first in Kuwait to offer a volunteers program in 2001, and it grew to be one of the most successful and highly requested volunteer programs in Kuwait today. This session will outline how both, The Scientific Center and the volunteers are benefiting from this valuable experience, and the impact this program had on the volunteers throughout the years.