Challenge for mind wizards.

Byline: REBECCA TORR

SOME of the world's most talented masterminds will go head to head in the world's greatest memory challenge to take place in Bahrain in October.

The 17th World Memory Championships finals will be held in the country for the second year running as part of Bahrain's 2008 International Festival of the Mind.

Participants of the final will compete in 10 disciplines over four days and the highest scorer across all the challenges will be crowned the world champion.

The prize money for the championship is $30,000 (BD11,340).

During the championships, participants are required to commit to memory and recall in a particular sequence as much as they can in each of the disciplines - spoken numbers, random playing cards, historic and future dates, binary numbers, random words, abstract images, names and faces, random digits, speed number and speed cards.

Other features of the festival include various community challenges, an inter-school mind games challenge, an inter-universities challenge, workshops and an exhibition of mind games, books and training materials.

The festival will be held at the Gulf Hotel's Gulf Convention Centre from October 23 to 26.

Intelnacom deputy chief executive officer Fuad Mubarak said the company was keen to bring the World Memory Championships to Bahrain because it wanted to raise awareness in the Arab world about the benefits of memory techniques.

"We strongly believe this is something good for the region," he told the GDN.

"Memorising is part of the culture of the Middle East. People memorise the Quran and poems, it's part of the Islamic culture.

"One of the objectives is to encourage this in the Arab world because we had no Arab participant last year.

"We want to spread this idea because it's a useful fun way of developing one of the key potential skills of the human brain."

Mr Mubarak said everyone could benefit by learning techniques to improve their memory and the festival was an opportunity to find out more.

"The brain is like any part of the body. You need to exercise it, so one way is to participate in the championship. It's like going to the gym for the mind," he said.

"If you don't exercise you won't know your potential."

Mr Mubarak said memory techniques were particularly helpful to students and that was why this year the festival had introduced inter-school and inter-university mind challenges.

"Each day, they will have four workshops to show them how to participate in mind games such as suduko or chess to enrich their interest," he said.

"We will invite school heads and teachers to attend.

"After the workshops, we will start the tournaments and announce the winners at the end of the day."

To involve the community conference organisers will hold memory games and challenges in shopping malls and supermarkets and prizes will be awarded to winners.

"One game is based on a shopping list - participants will be randomly selected and will be dictated a shopping list and then asked to bring the items," explained Mr Mubarak.

"An expert will then teach them a memory technique on the spot and ask them to go and bring the items again. The highest scorer will win a prize.

"You can do this with a friend, your mother, or a child - the target is to interest people in this and continue the exercise."

Mr Mubarak said the key objective of the festival was to pass on to the community techniques that would improve their memories, as well as bring to Bahrain an event that was entertaining and fun.

"We are bringing great value that children and adults will enjoy, it's fun and entertaining. It's a great opportunity for family to go out and spend a good time and exercise their brain," said Mr Mubarak.

"Bahrain is doing something unique and in line with His Majesty King Hamad and the government's efforts to enhance education in Bahrain and with international brands."

World Memory Sports Council general secretary Chris Day said that while the feats of World Memory Champions seemed impossible to the average person, in reality, everyone was capable of using their brain far more than they realised.

He said memorisation didn't rely on being academically gifted but on having a good imagination and the ability to visualise things.

"Memory is the key to everything, no matter what you are doing, and if you can give your brain a workout like you would give your body a workout then it will become more capable," he told the GDN.

"It's not a freak show, it's for everyone. You just need to unlock your brain using techniques.

Mr Day said having a better memory was not only of benefit to younger generations but could also give people a competitive edge in the workplace and help to delay the onset of old age.

The First Festival of the Mind was held in the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1995.

Since then, the festival has been held in the UK, alongside the World Memory Championships, and in other countries around the world including Malaysia, China and Bahrain.

For more information or to register for the any of the events of the festival visit: www.worldfestivalofthemind.com.

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Copyright 2008 Gulf Daily News

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