Mohamed Ashraf, president of the Muslim Educational Society’s (MES), Jeddah chapter, announced this and said: “We have been trying to bring Abdul Kalam to Jeddah to grace our awards ceremony following the MES-Al-Abeer Educity ESEL talent hunt competition, to inspire the winners.”

Kalam, who due to certain protocol issues, could not come earlier “would like to interact with the Indian student community representing all schools in the Kingdom and teachers. Such programs will be arranged in the cities of Jeddah, Dammam and Riyadh with the support and coordination of the Indian Consulate and Embassy and Al-Abeer,” he said.

The 21 finalists of the competition, Ashraf said, have read Kalam’s book entitled ‘Beyond 2020, A Vision For Tomorrow’s India,’ which is considered as a vision for the new millennium and presents a road map for India to become one of the top five economic powers in the world by 2020.

Indian Consul General B.S. Mubarak said students must obtain life skills and leadership qualities in addition to academic excellence to become successful. During the awards ceremony at the function, Mubarak backed the plan to bring Kalam. He congratulated the winners of the MES Al-Abeer Educity ESEL competition, which was held in four stages over the past months with the support of Indian schools. About 5,300 students took part in the first round, which was an essay writing competition on current topics.

C.P. Saleem, MES’ ex-president, presented the organization’s new project, which aims to provide safe drinking water by digging traditional wells or boreholes at selected locations. To be executed with the help of MES members and other philanthropists, the project will be implemented in Kerala and Rajasthan in the first phase.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Mohammed Qureshi, head of the chancery and consul education at the consulate; Masood Ahmed, principal, International Indian School Jeddah; and Mohammed Imran, marketing manager of Al-Abeer Group, besides MES officials Jamaluddin and K.P. Abdul Salam.