His Royal Highness Prince Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz expresses his thanks to the Prince Sultan University thus represented in the President of the Board of Trustees. Thanks also go to His Highness Prince Dr. Ibn Ayaf, on the occasion of the university team getting the third place in the seventh competition for peroration in city of Dubai HRH Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz thanked the University of Prince Sultan represented in the President of the Board of Trustees, His Highness Prince Dr. Abdul Aziz Bin Mohammed Bin Ayaf, on the occasion of the university team making third place in the seventh competition for peroration that was designated for environmental issues in city of Dubai, where the PSU team was able to get the third place between the assembly of the universities and colleges held in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from 21-22 November, 2007. Between the 45 universities and colleges that participated in the competition, PSU obtained third place in the path of the axis of "planting the Desert" with a total of 171 points, a difference of one point from the second place team, while the first place owner got 174 points only. His Highness Prince Salman concluded his letter – image attached – with his wishes to his sons, the university students, with continued success.

PSU Public Speaking Team Wins 3^rd Place in Dubai Competition

In their first attempt at such an event, a PSU student team won the second runners-up place in a prestigious public speaking contest held in Dubai, UAE in November 2007. The team, comprising Jehad Hussein, Saad Saudoon, Laith Al-Oufi, Mohamed Al-Lehbi and Abdullah Al-Hindas, entered the competition at the last minute hoping to gain valuable experience by taking part, only to find themselves winning 3rd place in their respective category. All the team members were overjoyed to win a top three position, especially as this was the first year the competition had been open to universities in Saudi Arabia, and especially after facing fierce competition from universities from the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

Jehad was the main speaker for the PSU team and he put in an assured performance, marked by clarity and composure, during which he adhered carefully to the strict time limit of 12 minutes. The PowerPoint presentation put together by the rest of the team was visually impressive and prompted some positive reaction by the audience. At one stage during his speech, Jehad popped a balloon to illustrate a point and that brought laughter and gasps from the rival participants.

This was the 7th Inter College Public Speaking Competition organized and hosted by the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG). [See the link: http://www.eeg-uae.org/ ] One of the aims of EEG is to interest undergraduate students in the Gulf region in environmental issues. To further that aim, all four topics that teams could choose were on environmental subjects. PSU’s team chose and spoke about ‘Desert Greening – Is it Feasible?’. Click on this link to read the text of the speech. 

Forty-five teams took part in the competition, many of them competing for the third, fourth or fifth time. Most of the participants were from universities in the UAE. The overall winner for the competition was a student from BITS Pilani of Dubai, a branch of one of the most prestigious universities in India. The event itself was held over two whole days (21^st – 22^nd November) at Dubai’s Knowledge Village. Though they were very happy to come away with a winning position, PSU’s Public Speaking Team felt that they gained some invaluable experience by entering such an event and hope to return for the 2008 competition.

The story of this success would not be complete without mentioning the great effort made by the Department of Student Affairs at PSU. Under the stewardship of Dr Abdulhamid Al-Abduljabbar and his deputy Dr Abdulqader Al-Khateeb, the whole venture was initiated and pushed along despite the closure of the university during the Eid holidays. Thanks to their efforts and that of their staff, PSU was able to send a team just in the nick of time!