The second season of the reality TV programme “Stars of Science” will start airing on October 3, with a raft of brand new features to fifteen public and private Arab TV channels.

The edutainment show, an initiative of Qatar Foundation, features a contest to encourage innovation among Arab youth and showcase their various inventions.

This season, presented again by Qatari host Khalid Al Jumaily, has been extended and enhanced and now consists of eight weekly prime time episodes (75 minutes) broadcasted every Sunday with a live finale (90 minutes) on November 28.

The prime time episodes, besides summing up the activities led by the candidates during the related round, will notably cover the face-to-face presentations of the candidates to the jury, in which they will have to convince the latter on the progress made on their innovation projects and on their achievement of the given challenge.

The 30 daily episodes (30 minutes), broadcast from Monday to Saturday, starting October 25, will give an additional insight on the candidates personalities and the development of their projects, while offering attractive reports about science in an entertaining way.

Prime time episodes one and two will cover the local selections taking place in eight Arab countries (Egypt, KSA, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia and UAE), upon an international recruitment campaign that attracted more than 7000 applications.

In prime time episode three, held in Doha, the best profiles identified from the regional casting tour will face a Pan-Arab jury, which will have the heavy responsibility to select the sixteen candidates entering the contest.

These short-listed hopefuls will be given the chance to develop their own innovation project and, for this purpose, they will be able to enter the programme’s specially-designed workshop, revamped for this new season, where they will have access to an array of state-of-the art resources as well as the support of top professionals.

As a specific new feature of this year, the evaluation of the candidates and of their projects, as well as the selection for the next stage, will be performed by Pan-Arab juries specific to each round, composed of two permanent members and guest top-notch experts.

A grand Pan-Arab jury, present on stage, and the TV viewers, voting through phone and SMS, will decide at parity on the final ranking and the granting of prizes totaling $600,000, with the top prize at $300,000.

“The popularity of the first season of ‘Stars of Science’ prompted us to repeat and enhance the show,” said Dr Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, president, Education City University.

“It succeeded beyond our expectations in its goal of making science both entertaining and enlightening. But we also want to encourage innovation and we were delighted to discover that there is no shortage among Arab youth of original thinkers who have the determination to turn their dreams into reality,” he added.

In the framework of a Pan-Arab partnership set by Qatar Foundation, the programme will namely be broadcast on Bahrain TV, Al Mahroussa (Egypt), Dream TV (Egypt), Saudi 1 (KSA), Al Rai (Kuwait), Al Jadeed (Lebanon), Mauritania TV; Arrabia (Morocco), Oman TV, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Qatar), Qatar TV (Qatar) Sudan TV, Syria TV, Hannibal TV (Tunisia) and Yemen TV. – TradeArabia News Service