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THE first-ever Arab World Memory Championships are to be staged in the kingdom this August and the top participants will be invited to test their skills against the best in the world in October.
The Festival of the Mind 2008 - which is taking place alongside the 17th World Memory Championship - will be held for the second consecutive year in Bahrain.
A number of community events will also be held as part of the festival including a university challenge.
These developments are a result of the resounding success of last year's event, which was hailed as one of the best ever staged.
Tony Buzan, championship founder, said: "We are delighted to be holding the World Memory Championships in Bahrain once again, and look forward to being an integral part of Intelnacom's 'Festival of the Mind 2008'.
"We were thrilled with our participation last year and look forward, once again, to the meeting of minds being held in Bahrain.
"This is indeed a great honour to be hosting the World Memory Championships once again in Bahrain. Each year we aim to add even more interactive challenges to allow the public to participate and you can be assured that the 2008 event will be even more thrilling."
Memory wizard Karan Beri from Adilya came to prominence last year and has been preparing for the coming championships, as recently reported in GulfWeekly.
He has a mild version of Asperger's Syndrome (AS) and has a special gift of being able to remember the exact day of any given date and year.
The 'Festival of the Mind' will include a number of "edu-entertaining" activities and this year will see some new ideas introduced.
For instance, there will be an inter-schools challenge in a number of mind games such as sudoku, chess, scrabble and IQ 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 Fuad Mubarak, Intelnacom's deputy chief executive officer and head of the organising committee.
In addition, Mr Mubarak announced that they will soon be releasing details of the first ever Arab World Memory Championships, which will be for residents of all Arab countries, to take place in Bahrain during August with the winners to be eligible to take part in the World Memory Championship.
The World Memory Championships were founded in London in 1991 by brain guru Mr Buzan and chess grandmaster Ray Keene - to promote memory as a 'Mind Sport', creating a set of 10 memory disciplines which are now accepted as the worldwide standard for international competition.
The disciplines are designed to measure pure memory skill, rather than any one individual's knowledge on a particular subject.
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.
Dr Gunther Karsten of Erfurt, Germany won the 16th World Memory Championship, last year in Bahrain, ousting his closest competitor and previous world champion Ben Pridmore of England, in the speed memorisation of a single shuffled pack of cards to claim the World Championship prize amongst competitors from China, United Kingdom, Germany, Asia, the Americas and many other countries.
Overall, the annual World Memory Championship represents one of the toughest mental tests of all time with competitors being asked to memorise 4,000 digit numbers and recall with absolute accuracy at least ten packs of cards in one hour.
Intelnacom's is an innovation company registered in Bahrain, and focuses on rewarding opportunities offered by emerging high-tech innovation. It 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.
The company has appointed MICE Management to organise the festival from October, 23-26 at the Gulf International Convention Centre, Gulf Hotel.p>
