World Memory Championship officials visit Bahrain

Mr. Chris Day, General Secretary, and Mr. Phil Chambers, Chief Arbiter, of the WMSC held meetings with Intelnacom, the event's host as well as representatives of local Event Management company MICE Management, who have been appointed to organize the event.

After viewing the venue at the Gulf International Convention Centre, Mr Day, praised the Kingdom of Bahrain for offering such excellent facilities saying, "After the great success of last year's event, when our championship was held in Bahrain for the first time, we are confident that the Kingdom of Bahrain will, once again prove the ideal location. Competitors are coming from all over the world to take part in this amazing contest and Bahrain offers fantastic facilities and what's more is centrally positioned to accommodate an expected 100 competitors flying here from different continents."

Over sixteen years of the competition, the mind blowing achievements of the competitors have outstripped expectations year after year. The very first winner was an Englishman, Dominic O'Brien who went on to become eight times World Champion. In recent years, as the Mind Sport of Memory is being adopted by more and ;more countries the competition is intensifying and it is expected that representatives from more than sixteen countries will be represented in Bahrain this year.

The disciplines undertaken during the World Memory Championships 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. Overall, the annual World Memory Championship represents one of the toughest mental tests of all time with competitors being asked to memorize 4,000 digit numbers and recall with absolute accuracy at least ten packs of cards in one hour.

The visitors were welcomed by Mr. Fuad Mubarak, Deputy CEO of Intelnacom who said:

"Once again it is a privilege to have the World Memory Championships held in Bahrain and we look forward to event more exciting challenges this year at this event and during Bahrain's own Festival of the Mind which will take place in conjunction with the championship."

"The 'Festival of the Mind' is an interesting concept we are developing to bring to Bahrain a set of edu-entertaining activities and this year will see some new ideas being introduced. Local participants can take part in the festival and we are also introducing an inter-schools challenge in a number of mind games such as Sudoku, Dama, Chess, Scrabble and I.Q. testing. There will also be an inter-University challenge for the same disciplines and we are hoping that an Inter-Gulf challenge will bring competitors from all over the Gulf,' said Mr. Fuad Mubarak, Intelnacom's Deputy Chief Executive Officer and head of the organizing committee.

Intelnacom is an innovation company registered in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and focuses on rewarding opportunities offered by emerging high-tech innovation. Intelnacom actively seeks to identify, develop, fund and bring-to-market concepts and ideas by combining an entrepreneurial outlook with a vision to create bankable solutions for mankind.