Manama: Around 80 youths from 16 countries have converged in Doha to harness their leadership skills at the Mosaic International Summit 2011, the first to be held outside Britain.
Mosaic was founded by Britain's Prince Charles with the aim of establishing a network of volunteers and developing youth leadership in British Muslim communities.
The summit has since expanded to include a number of countries to enable delegates to benefit from cross-cultural communication, knowledge and understanding, and improve the leadership skills of youth around the world.
Business and management professionals
The delegates will participate in leadership development workshops led by business and management professionals and community organisers, hear from chief executives and business leaders and visit various projects and organisations in Qatar, Qatari daily Gulf Times reported on Wednesday.
John Hawkins, Britain's Ambassador to Qatar, hailed the significant changes in the Arab world made largely thanks to youth movements.
In his address to the delegates, Qatar Foundation vice-chairman Saif Al Hajari said that one of Qatar's strengths was the presence of many people from different countries and cultures working together to build a nation.
Wasteful excess
He compared today's situation to that of his youth, when people had to be careful stewards of the environment without living with wasteful excess in order to prosper, which inspired him to start the Friends of the Environment organisation in Qatar.
"We have more children today, they have more knowledge, they have more technology, but they are facing more challenges because they have started to misbehave," he said. "To be a leader you have to behave right all the time."
Ali Al Wadaani, an electrical reliability engineer at Qatar Shell GTL, said he was participating in the conference to contribute to his company's development programmes that included working with local students to share information on Qatar's workforce needs and thelp hem make the right academic choices.
New ideas
Al Wadaani hopes to get new ideas from people with different backgrounds on how to invest in Qatar's leadership skill development and contribute to Qatar's national vision. The daily said.
Delegate Makhzani Ng said that although Mosaic is not strictly limited to being a Muslim foundation, his interest in coming to Doha was to gain experience from the other delegates and to enhance his role at the Bank Negara Malaysia (the Malaysian central bank) to develop their Islamic financial system.
"It is important to address issues such as wealth gaps in society, as well as reach out to the underprivileged, which the summit will address," he said.
