View the image at Casa Real
Today must have been a special day for Princess Letizia, as she returned to her homeland, Asturias. As you all surely remember, she was born in Oviedo, its capital. By the way, next Friday the Prince and the Princess of Asturias will be there again to attend the presentation ceremony of the 2009 Princes of Asturias Awards which is without doubt the major annual event they attend. Oviedo is already waiting for its Prince and Princess and its prizewinners…but everything in good time.
Today the Princess was in Candás, a beautiful fishing village in the north of Asturias famous for its Internatinal Sadine Festival (this blogger can testify to that) to visit the San Felix school. This centre is part of EducaRed program which is promoted by Fundación Telefónica and whose main goal is to apply Internet as a tool of innovation and pedagogic training among teachers, parents and pupils of primary and secondary education, baccalaureate and formative cycles of average degree, to improve the quality of their education and to encourage the equality of opportunities. Currently in Spain more than 12,000 schools are registered in this program.
See you in Oviedo next week!
Paty Spanish Royals Children, Education, Internet, Princess Letizia, Princess of Asturias
His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan met with the founders of Maktoob.com, Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury on Wednesday. The King congratulated them on their recent sale of their company to US Internet giant Yahoo!. During the meeting, King Abdullah expressed his happines and pride in the two men’s accomplishment which King Abdullah said it reflects development of the IT sector in Jordan, he also conferred the Al Hussein Medal for Distinguished Performance of the First Order to both Toukan and Khoury.
Yahoo had brough mktoob in August 2009. Maktoob has over 16.5million followers and is an Arabic language website. The deal of the sale was that Yahoo would offer Arabic-language content for the first time and versions of its products and services including instant messaging and e-mail in Arabic.
dazzling Jordanian Royals Abdullah II, Internet, Technology
The British royal family has raised its profile in the social networking community yet further by starting an account at Twitter. The royal tweets aren’t the online thoughts and feelings of Her Majesty as she goes about her day-to-day life, though; so far they’ve concentrated on the official engagements of members of the royal family and provide links to pages at the official website of the British monarchy. Along with the official website and the Royal Channel on YouTube, the British monarch is well and truly established in cyberspace. So much for accusations of being out of date and out of touch!
Esmeralda British Royals Internet, Social Networking, Twitter, YouTube
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has joined the social networking site Facebook. Sheikh Mohammed has two photo albums which are divided into two parts; My Family and Everyday Encounters as well as an Activities section where the Sheikh talks about his love of poems. “I am passionate about sports, particularly endurance racing. I enjoy and love horse riding with my family members. I enjoy the outdoors, especially the Arabian desert experience,” says Sheikh Mohammed on his page.
In the about me section the Sheikh says “I was brought up in a family that believed in the importance of visionary public service and phil-anthropy and I have tried to live these values in my everyday life.”
Sheikh Mohammed updated his page by asking a question to the people of the UAE “I visited the Ministry of Education today and would like to raise this question: Should the new academic year start during Ramadan or after the Eid holiday?”
Sheikh Mohammed’s Facebook link.
dazzling UAE Royals Facebook, Internet, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Social Networking, Technology
Click to see image at Belga
King Albert II of Belgium went on an IT tour along the most important IT sites in the Walloon region. He visited the Google Data centre, which is being built in Saint Ghislain, and afterwards he went to the Microsoft Innovation Center in Mons.
The King was allowed to experiment with some new features Google is developing, among them a new type of chess board. The King was also interested in the ways the Google centre tries to reduce it’s energy waste. The new center in Saint Ghislain is to become one of the most important Internet centers in the world.
In the afternoon, the King also visited the competitors of Microsoft, in the Microsoft Innovation Center in Mons. Both IT centers are part of what is generally called project “Digital Innovation Valley”, a project to attract new investors in the Walloon region.
For an article about this visit, see here (in French)
For more pictures see here for Google and here for Microsoft.
For more information about King Albert’s activities, see this thread.
LadyLeana Belgian Royals Internet, King Albert II, Technology
Picture from TRF avatar gallery
Jordan Queen Rania Al-Abdullah has reportedly registered on the the popular social networking twitter to talk about the Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to the Middle East. In one of the Queen’s posts she say’s “Just choppered to airport to receive the Pope. Husband piloting, he got acrobatic to quiet butterflies in stomach… told u he was action man.”
Queen’s twitter address according to a statement by the Queen’s office is http://twitter.com/QueenRania
Queen Rania has been known to use online social networking such as youtube.
dazzling Jordanian Royals Internet, Queen Rania
