TEHRAN — The 18th Khwarizmi Youth Festival opened on Wednesday with 500 participants from across the country at Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University in Tehran, IRIB reported.

Some 383 innovations and inventions in various fields of science and technology will be showcased during this event.

Students will vie with each other in four main categories of basic sciences, technologies, arts and architecture, and agriculture, the event’s presiding juror Hamidreza Azemati said.

In addition to financial aids and university admissions given to award winners, 32 prize winning ideas will be commercialized, he added.

The Khwarizmi International Award (KIA) which was named in memory of Abu Ja’far Mohammad Ibn Mousa Khwarizmi, the great Iranian mathematician and astronomer (770-840 C.E), is given annually by the Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST) to individuals who have made outstanding achievements in research, innovation and invention, in fields related to science and technology.                                

The first session of the Khwarizmi award ceremony which was held in 1987, was only for Iranian nationals, but from the fifth session it became an international award. From the 10th KIA Session, International Organizations such as WIPO, UNESCO, IFIA, COMSTECH, COMSATS, TWAS, ISESCO and WAITRO sponsored the KIA.

On the other hand Khwarizmi Youth Award is a national version of Khwarizmi International Award which only Iranians who are less than 30 years old can participate. This award started in 1999.

MQ/MG