Doha: Qatar is confident the entire region will benefit from the 2022 Fifa World Cup following the launch of an innovative award related with the football showpiece.
‘Challenge 22’, an initiative from the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022, was ushered in with a region-wide launch at the Four Seasons Hotel here on Wednesday.
The initiative, meant for the time-being for the Gulf, is an innovation award developed by the SC in coordination with Silatech and the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) with the aim of inspiring and challenging the brightest minds in the region to build a lasting legacy around the Fifa World Cup 2022.
“We believe Challenge 22 is our first step towards fostering the concept of unity and fellowship in the Gulf and Arab regions. For a long time, the concept has been our region is wealthy and hence incapable of coming up with innovations to fuel growth for the benefit of mankind. We believe this initiative can change the conception and help us be in the limelight on a more positive footing,” Hassan Al Thawadi, head of organising committee of 2022 World Cup, told Gulf News.
“The idea is the creation of a legacy that will go on till the 2022 Fifa World Cup Qatar and beyond, not just for our country, but for the entire Arab world,” he added.
Based on three key challenges of sustainability, event experience and sport and health, Challenge 22 will be open only for participants from the six Gulf states of Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. For a start, three prominent personalities — entrepreneur Areej Al Kharafi from Kuwait, tennis player Mohammad Saadon Al Kuwari of Qatar and cartoonist Mohammad Saeed Hareb from the UAE — have been appointed ambassadors of Challenge 22.
“We believe in this great sporting spectacle of the Fifa World Cup and we are looking at the lasting legacy it will leave behind. We want to contribute so that the World Cup will not turn out to be just a passing event, but a true vehicle that will contribute to our growth as a nation and a region,” Al Thawaidi noted.
“We have had a first-hand experience of how football can be such a huge factor for change. One of our challenges here is to give youth the platform to unlock their potential. We need to prove yet again that Arabs have innovative ideas to foster change and develop the world,” said Dr Tariq Yousuf, CEO, Silatech.
The deadline for sending in entries is March 3, after which entries will be screened and participants will be asked to prepare a more comprehensive proposal. Further information may be obtained at www.challenge22.qa.
