News & Event

The Ministry of Education, represented by the Department of Innovation and Scientific Olympiad, and in partnership with Petroleum Development Oman, organized two-days four sessions for evaluating the scientific innovations for the PDO Award for Renewable Energy in its fifth edition. This edition of the competition was devoted to hydrogen energy and finding innovative ways to extract it and was announced in January whereas registration for it lasted till the end of May. The award targets students in grades (7 – 12) in public and private schools. The initial evaluation was held in the last two days (on Monday and Tuesday) for the qualified projects to compete for the final evaluation that will be held next December.

On the importance of this Award and its role in developing students’ abilities and innovations, Dr. Maya Al Azri, Acting Director of  the Department of Innovation and Scientific Olympiad, said: “The Ministry of Education believe in the importance of other various government and private institutions participating in supporting educational programs that contribute to developing students’ skills and abilities in innovation, and this Award is one of these important programs.”

One hundred and seventy scientific innovative projects participated in the fifth edition, through the award registration form, and forty-four projects were qualified for the second phase from various educational governorates in the Sultanate. The qualified projects presented their presentations to the jury consisting of a number of academics, experts, and specialists in the subject of the award, and the evaluation was done at this stage through video communication technology, with the third phase of the award being held in person in December. Participants were evaluated on several items, namely: research question, design, methodology, implementation, creativity, and originality, to qualify fifteen schools to compete for the competition prizes, which reach five thousand Omani riyals.

It is worth noting that the PDO Award for Renewable Energy was first implemented in 2016/2017 academic year, in a successful partnership between the Ministry of Education represented by the Department of Innovation and Scientific Olympiad and PDO Renewable Energy, which aims to enhance aspects

of innovation and scientific research among students; to find solutions to energy issues, and to provide innovative scientific models in the fields of renewable energy; benefiting from solar energy, wind energy, sea energy, geothermal energy, and other renewable energy sources, as well as benefiting from water associated with oil production operations, and wastewater using renewable energy sources; to manage it and propose appropriate solutions for extracting hydrogen in innovative ways.