The PIE: How much money can each scholar receive?

CG: If you start at your Bachelors and go all the way to your Doctoral, it could be as much as half a million dollars by the time you pay all the boarding, the benefits, the allowances. He pays for everything.

“If you start at your bachelors and go all the way to your doctoral, it could be as much as $500,000. He pays for everything”

The PIE: That’s incredible.

CG: It is. And what’s incredible is no one has ever disappointed him. There’s no one that would ever not do more than 110% on their studies and giving back. The other thing that is very unique about our programme is they do a lot of internships and volunteer. A lot of our young people end up being leaders on their campuses; they’ve developed and designed different types of models for cultural studies, tutoring – so they’re not just going to school and getting a degree.

The PIE: Do you think that’s what he’s trying to achieve here – putting Bahrain on the map?

CG: Yes. Well, he wants to have these young people come back as leaders in his country and to develop the expertise from the subjects they’ve studied in all their different career fields.

The PIE: Is this scholarship well known in Bahrain?

CG: Very. In fact, now we’re in our 15th anniversary year it’s becoming very competitive, and it’s amazing now at a young age people know that this is going to be available. Along with that, he has established an endowment fund, I believe it was in 2006, so it will be forever. We have lots of big sponsors that are putting money towards it, it’s not just his money.

The PIE: Who are the sponsors?

CG: It’s a lot of the banking community, Investcorp, some community leaders, GPIC, the oil companies…

The PIE: How much money do you think the Crown Prince has given to the scholarship fund over the 15 year period?

CG: I couldn’t give you the exact amount but it’s over one and a half million dinars (US$4m) every year of his own money. The other thing is he supports all their summer school, study abroad, internship.

The PIE: So you’ve got a real global citizen hothouse.

“One girl went to boarding school in the US, she said ‘I’m going to go to Yale’. Everyone made fun of her – she went to Yale. Now she’s a top lawyer”

CG: Oh, my! They’re humbling. One guy just got a job for Formula One, he’s developed engine parts; we’ve got Microsoft engineers; we’ve got one girl who started off in a village school, her parents never graduated high school. She went to boarding school in the US, she said ‘I’m going to go to Yale’. Everyone made fun of her – she went to Yale. She said ‘I’m going to go to Columbia University – she went to Columbia University. Now she’s a top lawyer.

The PIE: Was going to boarding school part of the scholarship?

CG: Yes. If they’re in the Ministry school, because they get limited English instruction. Most of it’s Arabic. We don’t want them to be limited to a lower-level university, so we send them to two years of the top boarding schools in the UK and the US and then they all get into Stanford and Harvard. And those boarding schools at the limit for tuition are at least $60,000 at year. He does not limit them up until PhD.