DOHA: Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulla Al Thani, Reach Out to Asia (Rota) brand ambassador and the first Qatari to climb Mount Everest, delivered a lecture at UCL London on Wednesday.
Sheikh Mohammed’s lecture “Follow Your Dreams: The story of an Arab with Altitude” was part of Qatar UK 2013 Year of Culture. In his talk before academics and students, Sheikh Mohammed recounted his two month journey up Mount Everest that raised over $1m for education projects in Nepal.
Prior to the lecture, Professor Hugh Montgomery of UCL’s Department of Clinical Physiology and the CASE Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine, held a workshop that examined what the Sheikh’s body would have experienced at the summit, providing a fascinating insight into how the brain, lungs and metabolisms are impacted by extreme altitude.
This was just one of the many ways that UCL, which recently opened the first British University campus here, is celebrating Qatar UK 2013 cultural exchange programme. Other UCL Qatar UK projects include the Slade School of Fine Art artist exchange, where four visual artists from the UK are currently completing a four-week residency in Qatar working alongside four local emerging Qatari artists and the Old Doha Prize which will bring together architects based in the UK and Qatar for a one week design charette in Qatar later this month.
Professor Anthony Smith, UCL Vice-Provost (Education and International) and Chair of the lecture, said: “I am very pleased to welcome Sheikh Mohammed to the UK. This lecture provides an important contribution to UCL’s Global Citizenship Programme and an exciting platform to share ideas and experience between Qatar and the UK.”
The Peninsula
