The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) has set up a new research department with the hope to make significant impact on the local community on various health issues. WISH will also hold a Learning Week leading to the next global summit in November in 2018.

“We have a new research department and we hope that it will make an impact within Qatar. It will add Qatari perspective to the research papers that were published in the last summit.The team will conduct research with several ministries and entities in the country and will expand local community events,” Sultana Afdhal, acting CEO of WISH told Gulf Times yesterday on the sidelines of the event, 'Thriving together' organised by Qatar Foundation.

“The new research team focuses on autism, dementia and cardio vascular diseases.We are also hoping to forge relationship with Hamad Bin Khalifa University and other entities in Qatar Foundation as well as Hamd Medical Corporation and other entities in Qatar. We have a core research department and we aim to introduce interns to this research team. We are looking to provide opportunities for interns from Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar as well as the students from College of Medicine at Qatar University,” explained Afdhal.

As for the next global summit to be held in November 2018, Afdhal said that it is going to be very exciting. “We are going to have an added focus on Qatar. We will have a Learning Week leading to the summit. We will have a lot of new activities that will go into the summit and also some of the activities of the past programmes,” noted the official.

“At the Learning Week we are focusing on interactive demonstrations of innovative programmes we do in Qatar. It will also have some training programmes in which some of the delegates coming for the summit might arrive early and take part. We will run some programmes and training at the event,” highlighted Afdhal.

According to the official, WISH has recently collaborated with Liverpool Football Club (LFC) to train local coaches in Qatar. “LFC coaches gave one week training to the local coaches to coach children with autism to play the game which will lead to capacity empowerment of the community. This collaboration comes out of the research report on autism which highlighted the need for leisure activities,” said Afdhal.

“The report suggested that it was important to use some of the learning within the community and we decided on implementing it through the collaboration. This collaboration is all evidence based one. We will continue to engage with them till we need and hopefully take coaches to Liverpool club for further programmes,” she continued.

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