Stenden University Students Break Guinness World Record
Doha, State of Qatar – February 19, 2012
A group of seven students from Stenden University Qatar succeeded on 10th February 2012 in organizing one of the biggest events of 2012 and broke the Guinness World Record of the game “Hide & Seek”. The previous record was held at 508 participants in England, while the new record held by Qatar stands at a whooping 1240 participants, which means well more than doubling the previous number.
Katara thankfully hosted the university project in their continued support of the youth and humanitarian projects. The funds raised from this event are going to Qatar Red Crescent and their campaign toward the Horn of Africa. AN official adjudicator from Guinness World Record was present to ensure all rules and regulates are being carefully followed so to give the certificate on the same day after the event. The judge, Ms. Tarika Vara, was fairly impressed and said that she never had students organizing a Guinness World Record attempt.
The event ended with a number of performances with local talents providing an amazingly diverse music experience for the audience. The talents participating were Rabee DJ, Let us Run band, Lavinia Kanagaendran, Sa Mad band, Ousama beat-boxing and Cronkite Satellite.
The students only had two months to organize this big project to break the world record. Event organization and staging is mandatory for the Event Management minor studies within the students’ studies at Stenden University Qatar. The students need to work in groups and apply all theory learnt throughout their studies in this practical project. Planning and organizing starts with designing a concept or an idea for an event, and forming the goals behind hosting such an event, evaluating a budget, then searching and negotiating with different companies regarding sponsorship. All expenses of hosting and organizing are covered through sponsorship. One of the main goals for the students of this minor is to practice their business negotiation skills and reach agreement with companies.
The organizing team was: Nadine Assi, Abdulla Al-Ghanim, Abdulrahman Al Mulla, Kahlid Al Shamlan, Hesham Dakoroury, Faisal Darwish and Nasser al Manaa. The mission and vision for the event was to have wide impact, to be for charity, to gather as many people as possible for one goal, and to be interactive and fun.
The students kept in mind the Qatar 2030 Vision during the planning of the event. “Development of a just and caring society is based on high moral standards, and capable of playing a significant role in global partnerships for development” was the starting point. The wise leadership of H.H. The Emir Sheikh Hamad Khalifa Al Thani, his insightful view, and his continuous contribution to humanitarian projects were the main inspiration for the organizers to accomplish a project that would make Qatar proud and has its name in the world records once more.
Keeping in mind the previous fundamentals, the students decided to include the Guinness World Records in their event idea. Only then the group thought of ‘Hide & Seek’ as it was the ideal record to be sought for several reasons: it is an old traditional game that our ancestors played and is still being played to this day, it gathers a large number of people, it has a unique level of interactivity, and it is plain fun! In addition, the great humanitarian aspect in which the event will gather as many as possible in one place, at the same time, interacting with each other, breaking a world record, and all of this for one common cause in helping the Horn of Africa.
In the beginning the organizers focused on the youth to participate to empower their role in such charitable events. At the same time, there was such a great interest from different age groups that the decision was made to include all age groups in the event. The participants’ age was as diverse as ranging from three to over 50 years of age.
Fantastic support was received from a number of companies to help the students accomplish their goals. A thank you to the sponsors: Sunrise Trading (Gold Sponsor), Thales (Bronze Sponsor), ILoveQatar (Media/Social Media and Community) and the contributors Al Faisal Holding as well as Doha Insurance.
International and local schools supported the event with sending students in groups or individually after providing great marketing platforms to the organizing team. A thank you to: QIS, the Lebanese School, Qatar Academy, American School of Doha, Cambridge School and Doha College. The following universities were also present: VCU, ABP, CNA-Q and CMU.
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