KUWAIT: Sabah Al Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity (SACGC) honored four engineers from Equate Petrochemical Company for obtaining a patent from the US Patent Office, for their respective inventions. The engineers were lauded for creating a mobile maintenance robot, to check the efficiency and safety of indoor spaces, with the aim of raising the levels of indoor safety and their maintenance quality. The robot is expected to reach higher altitudes and smaller, confined sites during routine inspection and maintenance operations without any human intervention.

Bader Al-Humaidhi

Bader Al-Humaidhi, Chairman of Board of Directors at SACGC, said that the average cost of a single invention, up to the stage of obtaining a patent is USD 25,000, provided by the Center to support Kuwait's young inventors and creators. "The winners were appreciated to encourage inventors and young Kuwaiti creators to provide innovations that were more beneficial to humanity and for Kuwait to achieve a better position in the Global Innovation Indicators list." He also praised the efforts made by Equate to obtain the patent that not only provided assistance for Kuwait's factories, but was also used by the Dow factories in the United States to help with the company's maintenance.

On his part, Deputy Director Manager at Equate for Technical Services, Dr Salman Al-Ajmi, said, "This patent is the third of its kind obtained by the company and we were successful in registering the patent, which was developed by a team of engineers in cooperation with the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) and the Sabah Al-Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity."

Al-Ajmi also explained that the invention demonstrates the company's firm commitment to innovation and its continuous endeavors to enhance the technical environment. "It provides assurance of safety and efficiency standards that are adhered to in all aspects of the tasks provided" adding that "the invention is a qualitative and important leap in the use of advanced and effective technologies to support advanced maintenance."

Dr Bassam Al-Faili

Al-Ajmi stressed that EQUATE's achievements, were in line with the vision of New Kuwait 2035, as part of its endeavors to contribute to the manufacturing industry, through innovations with the ability to play an operational role in pushing the industry forward. In turn, the Commissioned Director of SACGC, Dr. Bassam Al-Faili added, " We celebrate today a special achievement after registering a patent for a project that concerns the oil sector".

She also indicated that "this achievement is the result of close cooperation between the center and EQUATE through the development of ideas, the transformation of these ideas into prototypes to prove their feasibility and effectiveness, which leads to obtaining a patent and finally turning them into a commercial product." Since its establishment, the Sabah Al-Ahmad Center for Giftedness has obtained 495 patents, of which 107 inventions has been turned into commercial products.