A senior science ministry official announced a 30 percent rise in the number of foreign scientific projects nominated for the 27th International Khwarizmi Festival awards. “A total of 126 projects from 38 foreign countries have been sent to the festival which shows a 30 percent rise in the presence of foreign scientists in the festival as compared with the previous event,” Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology and Head of Iran's Research Organization for Science and Technology Ahmad Akbari said, addressing the 27th International Khwarizmi Festival in Tehran on Sunday. He said that Iranian scientists residing abroad have also sent their works to the festival and are present in the event. “788 projects in different areas have been presented to the festival and the selected foreign projects have been from Hungary, Germany, China and Australia,” Akbari said. The 27th International Khwarizmi Festival opened in the conference hall of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Tehran on Sunday. In 1987, the leading Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST), affiliated to the ministry of Science, Research and Technology, decided to institute an award to acknowledge outstanding achievements in the field of Science and Technology. IROST proposed the creation of the Khwarizmi Award in memory of Abu Jafar Mohammad Ibn Mousa Khwarizmi, the great Iranian Mathematician and Astronomer (770-840 AD). The first festival of the Khwarizmi Award, in 1987, called on the Iranian nationals to present their outstanding contribution, invention or innovation.