Students and young scholars with ideas for innovative inventions often encounter financial difficulties that hinder their scientific and academic development. Egypt is hoping to help solve this problem with the launch of the Innovators Support Fund.
The fund, which is supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research but has independent management, aims to provide unconventional scholarships for high school students to complete their university studies in Egypt and abroad, as well as programs for university students, graduates and pre-university students to finance research on innovative ideas and develop projects for commercial use.
“We do not offer scholarships in the conventional sense,” said Mohamed Amer, the executive director of the Innovators Support Fund. “Instead, we would support anyone who presents unique ideas or visions and wants to complete his university or school studies, and is financially deprived.”
Besides scholarships, Amer said, the fund offers various other programs directed at young innovators. These include supporting awareness of the culture of innovation and invention, offering incentives and prizes for innovators, providing technical and scientific support to develop ideas and to conduct market studies and feasibility studies, and helping with registering patents, developing patent prototypes, and establishing companies to economically implement patents and innovations. The funds’ grants range between 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($3,000) to one million Egyptian pounds ($60,000), said Amer. (See a related article, “Egypt Hopes to Strengthen Scientific Research Through ‘Science Up.’ ”)