Qatar Foundation's Discover Education City exhibit comes to Abu Dhabi

Discover Education City highlights the programs of the five universities in Education City. The exhibit has developed out of local and regional student recruitment fairs attended over the past two years, and is now embarking on a tour of major cities in the region.

Parents, students and the public are invited to attend the first in the series to take place outside Doha, the Abu Dhabi Discover Education City exhibit on December 12 from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at the Royal Meridian in Abu Dhabi. Each university will make available information regarding degrees, course offerings and admission deadlines.

The new format aims to promote the academic programs on offer and to recruit high- caliber candidates from a targeted student applicant pool. Over the next few months, the exhibit travels to a number of other destinations in the region.

Admissions officers from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Arts in Qatar, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar will be hosting the events.

Each university offers programs that are regarded as world leaders in their discipline, and the qualification students will earn in Qatar is identical to that available from the home campus.

"Working as a collection of universities comprising Education City gives us the opportunity to promote the uniqueness of this educational center, and to disseminate a very powerful message of prestige, choices and academic excellence," said Dr. Abdullah Al-Thani, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Qatar Foundation. "By enrolling on one of our programs, students can gain a world-class university education right here in the Gulf."

Qatar Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization chartered in 1995 on the personal initiative of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar. The organization's chairperson is Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, wife of the Emir and dedicated campaigner for quality education.

The central tenet of Qatar Foundation's philosophy is that people are a country's most valuable resource, and that enabling people to develop their full potential benefits both the individual and society as a whole.

Its most ambitious project is a multi-institutional Education City, an eight-million-square-meter campus dedicated to education, research and technology.

In addition to the campuses of five world-renowned universities, Education City includes a science and technology park that puts industry giants and small entrepreneurs in touch with each other and with the wealth of expertise at Education City's research institutions. A 350-bed state-of-the-art specialty teaching hospital, with an endowment of US$8 billion to support operating costs and fund research, is slated for completion in 2010.