E-Quiz launched with over 11,000 young contestants

OVER 11,000 school students and teenagers have entered the Siemens Mobile e-Quiz 2002 which was launched at a for-mal ceremony at the Dubai Internet City on Sunday by Dr Omar Bin Sulaiman, chief executive officer of Dubai Internet City (DIC).

The quiz aimed at students from ages eight to 18 which will run until June 16 is the first of its kind in the region. It targets around 250,000 students in the UAE.

Open to residents of the UAE, the organizers are confident that the final figure will be much higher now that the quiz has been launched. "We are sure that word-of-mouth will ensure that the final number of participants will be much higher than what is today," said Dr Juma Matrooshi, di-rector of Dubai Airport Free Zone and chairman of the quiz core committee.

The quiz hosted by dubaiquiz.com in association with Knowledge Village has quizzes and contests which are further categorized to suit the different tastes and talents of all students. Daily prizes will be awarded while the best points earned over the week by the participants will be carried forward. "It means that a participant can register any time during the quiz period and yet be able to win prizes," said Jamshed Mehdi, chief executive officer of Dubaiquiz.com.

Speaking at the press conference, Sulaiman expressed happiness to be associated with this project. "I have always tried to find out what fascinates children when they watch quizzes on TV. The answer, I found out, was the challenge in solving the questions asked," he said.

The new generation, he said, was fascinated with the new technology and events like this "were a drive for our children to find out what's new. For us, we have to always be there for them and play our role."

Through its subsidiary units Datafort and the eHosting, DIC is providing the entire infrastructure and technical support for securely hosting the e-Quiz programme online.

Knowledge Village located in the Dubai Technology, e-commerce and Media Free Zone aims at promoting the growth of talent, ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship. Hence the association with the e-Quiz comes naturally.

"Competitions like e-Quiz play a great role in promoting talent and encouraging young people to develop the skills and intellectual discipline for acquiring knowledge. Delivered on an online medium, e-Quiz is the ideal competition for the cyber generation," said Dr Ab-dulla Al Karam, director of Knowledge Village.

"Supporting the Siemens Mobile e-Quiz 2002 competition is part of Knowledge Village's strategy of promoting a culture of lifelong learning. We aim to bring together a variety of organizations that can provide the access and content for lifelong learning. We hope to see further such competitions that reach out to more age groups across the region," he added.

The entire process has a great deal of transparency as all winners' names are up-loaded on the site. The core committee headed by Matrooshi comprises prominent personalities from schools, media, business houses, government departments and corporate houses is overlooking the quiz.

"For businesses to get involved in such events reflects their commitment to society. The core committee has been given a thorough run down on the entire working of the quiz. We are happy with what we have seen. We need to encourage the future generation to-wards such constructive initiatives," said Matrooshi.

He said the entire process was a challenge and the job of the core committee was to monitor, supervise and receive a feedback. "The feedback will give us a good indication of what kinds of improvements are needed for the future. We will get this from parents, organizations and others involved in the quiz," he said.

Buoyed by the response to this quiz, Mehdi disclosed that a quiz for college and university students will be held in September this year. In January 2003, e-quiz will be ex-tended to cover school students from all GCC countries.

Prizes to the tune of Dhs 200,000 are up for grabs during the quiz period.

This includes computers, printers, CD players, MP3 players, computer courses, sports bags among others. There are winners for every single quiz and contest on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

The quiz has been designed in such a way that a student has repeated chances to win and improve his score if he does not do well in one attempt.