If you google the words gifted and talented, you will be presented with millions of confusions and obvious contractions. But above that, you will be lured into connecting them with education and particularly children. The U.S. Department of Education officially defines gifted children as those “with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience or environment.”
The U.S. Department of Education’s definition of giftedness incorporates the concept of talent, which is used more often to refer to a natural tendency toward achievement and skills in one specific area. Gifted students typically show talent in one or more areas, including creative thinking, general intellectual ability, performing or visual arts, psychomotor skills or specific
academic abilities. Gifted and talented children are often self-motivated in the area of their talents, with a great deal of curiosity and a genuine enjoyment in learning. They are problem solvers who tend to think in the abstract and are often perfectionists. Gifted and talented children frequently are separated out from the normal educational system because they are far ahead of the rest of their class and have difficulty finding an education curriculum that is challenging enough for them.
According to Humphrey Oborah (PhD) who is an expert in Talent and Giftedness, the definition of talent and giftedness (Oborah 2009) should never bring up any contradiction as they are only related. Anyone can have a talent but not all are gifted. Therefore, talent is a subset of giftedness and only about 12% of the world population can be described as gifted. Whereas
both are natural and God-given, the multiplicity of Talent “Docmiciles” and “Rigows” gives one multiple edges to be described as gifted. So gifted persons are able to perform, at unique and breathtaking levels, multiplicity of tasks, in real world and with a lot of ease and even with no formal education or learning.
These awards focus on people with exceptional, natural multiple talents known as gifted. The award differs significantly from the numerous “talent awards” that focus on one exceptional ability e,g music , comedy , sport, academic, etc.
We are keen on persons exhibiting at least 4 such multiple talents and in real world. The awards focus on any age as talent or giftedness is not limited to age as may be biased in many quarters.