KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir's support for the Kuwait Science Club (KSC) has helped the country get advanced positions in the Global Innovation Index (GII), affiliated to World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), KSC Chairman Talal Al-Kharafi stressed on Friday. In a press statement, Kharafi said Kuwait came first in the Middle East region and second in the world in backing scientific innovations, jumping 11 positions from 2016 to 2017 to reach the 56th rank in the GII amongst 127 other countries.

He revealed that the club established an office to care for inventors, as a signal of its keenness on buttressing youth, extolling the pioneering role of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science in backing the club's activities. He added that the office encouraged youth to fulfill and develop their creative ideas in order to obtain several patents from Kuwait, GCC countries or any other patent offices across the globe.

The office also backed Kuwaiti inventors to take part in the biggest world inventions exhibitions in which the country chalked up several achievements, he noted. He noted that Kuwaiti inventor Abdullah Al-Yateem ranked first in the Mexico exhibition in 1999 and his compatriot Ahmad Al-Hashash won the Oscar of Inventions Award 2005 from Exhibition of International Inventions - Geneva in April. Kharafi said that the State of Kuwait obtained several patents in many fields, noting that it hosted some international events in this field.

Meanwhile, Kuwait has seen prominent development in the quality of local scientific innovations that put the country in the 18th place worldwide on the Global Innovation Index, said a report by WIPO, a UN related organization, on Thursday. The report added that Kuwait sits in the sixth place in spreading knowledge and the 12th in the outcome of the information technology field. - KUNA