Saudis bagged as many as 13 awards at the world's largest inventors' convention, which ended Thursday in Geneva. All the 11 Saudi male and female inventors who participated in this year's 37th Geneva Inventors' Fair won the top prizes. The fair featured 700 inventors and some 1,000 inventions from 45 countries. Last year, four Saudi males and females won nine awards. Prince Naif Bin Mamdooh Bin Abdul Aziz won the International Inventors' Union's Best Inventor's Prize for his chopper-borne firefighting and rescue unit. Dr. Mazen Ba-Abbad who invented a sewage refinery system won the Swiss Tourism Association's Best Invention Prize. The Malaysian Association for Science and Research's Best Invention Prize went to Mohammad Al-Matrafi who invented a smart system for swimming pool safety. Dr. Intisar Al-Sehebani received the gold medal for her invention Homozygous Chromotid Replicator. She shared the gold medal with Rada Al-Kholaifi who won for inventing a feet-exercising machine. Inventions can be entered only once at the Geneva show and must be patented. However, entries are not necessarily tested or screened by national authorities. Another prize awarded at the fair, the fourth award of King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Institution for Gifted People (Mawhiba), went to Saudi national Mohammad Razali who invented an environment protection system. Other Saudi inventions that won gold medals were: • a Total Integrated Tracking System by Khalid Aal Rasheed • a system to detect the traffic jam rate by Abdurrahman Al-Ohali • a way to measure precision in fabric cutting by Najla Al-Thobaiti, • an early alarm system to detect speed bumps by Mohammad Asiri • a system invented by Fahad Al-Malki of the Royal Saudi Air Force to prevent airplane engine from exploding.
