DAMMAM: Fresh off her Fashion Award win at the National Cultural Awards, Princess Nourah Al-Faisal headed to the Eastern Province this week for the first Design Research Forum.
A lavender carpet was rolled out at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University (formerly the University of Dammam), where the all-day forum — the first of its kind — brought together students, academics and enthusiasts from across the Kingdom in the name of design research.
The CEO of Art of Heritage and founder of Adhlal, a Riyadh-based consultancy supporting the creative economy, Princess Nourah told Arab News that it was “a full circle moment.”
“I came here (IAU) in 2017 as part of the first industry report. We did part of our first focus groups here, and some of the people, some of the partners that we brought to participate with us, actually were part of that as well,” she said.
Princess Nourah explained that bridging academia and industry was central to Adhlal’s mission and long-term strategy: “When we originally did our first industry report, we understood right then that one of the big gaps was this connection between academia and the industry.”
