Hamdan Foundation

Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing is a pro­gram by the UNESCO-rec­og­nized Ham­dan Bin Rashid Al Mak­toum Foun­da­tion for Med­ical and Edu­ca­tion­al Sci­ences in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion sup­ports edu­ca­tion­al endeav­ors for gift­ed chil­dren in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and worldwide.

1998

His High­ness Sheikh Ham­dan Bin Rashid Al Mak­toum, the Deputy Ruler of Dubai and the Min­is­ter of Finance and Indus­try of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, founds the epony­mous foun­da­tion. The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion aims to pro­mote edu­ca­tion­al excel­lence and fos­ter tal­ent and inno­va­tion. In its first year, the Ham­dan Foun­da­tion cre­ates a series of awards to rec­og­nize achieve­ments in nine dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories, which are pre­sent­ed to recip­i­ents in Dubai.

2001

The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion becomes a mem­ber of the World Coun­cil for Gift­ed and Tal­ent­ed Chil­dren.

2009

The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion, togeth­er with UNESCO, cre­ates an inter­na­tion­al award, the UNESCO-Ham­dan Bin Rashid Al Mak­toum Prize, which is award­ed each year for out­stand­ing excel­lence and ground-break­ing inno­va­tion in edu­ca­tion at an inter­na­tion­al level.

2015

The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion launch­es a spe­cial­ized cen­ter to fos­ter gift­ed­ness and inno­va­tion, the Ham­dan Bin Rashid Al Mak­toum Cen­ter for Gift­ed­ness and Cre­ativ­i­ty.

2017

The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion ini­ti­ates the devel­op­ment of the World Gift­ed­ness Cen­ter (WGC), which aims to become a glob­al hub for tal­ent devel­op­ment and cre­ate a mind­set of cul­ti­va­tion of excel­lence to sup­port fun­da­men­tal edu­ca­tion­al needs around the world. For that rea­son, the WGC Devel­op­ment Con­sor­tium is cre­at­ed from three teams of spe­cial­ists: a team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Regens­burg (Ger­many) led by Prof. Dr. Hei­drun Stoeger, a team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Erlan­gen-Nurem­berg (Ger­many) led by Prof. Drs. Albert Ziegler, and a team at the Ham­dan Foun­da­tion (Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates) led by Dr. Mari­am AlGhawi. The flag­ship offer­ing of the World Gift­ed­ness Cen­ter is Glob­al Tal­ent Mentoring.

2023

The Ham­dan Foun­da­tion signs a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing (MoU) with the UNESCO Region­al Cen­tre for Qual­i­ty and Excel­lence in Edu­ca­tion. This part­ner­ship sup­ports the con­ti­nu­ity of devel­op­ment and the exchange of expe­ri­ences and knowl­edge to ensure effec­tive move­ment towards build­ing a glob­al cit­i­zen­ry and achiev­ing sus­tain­able suc­cess­es and accom­plish­ments. The empha­sis is on trans­lat­ing the part­ner­ship into tan­gi­ble prac­tices and pro­grams that con­tribute to enhanc­ing learn­ing outcomes.