CAIRO: Following the Euro-Mediterranean Innovation Marketplace, which wrapped up last week in Cairo, was a rare chance to read into the future of Egypt's research and technology efforts. The Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) program organized this event in its first year. The RDI was established in late 2007 through a grant of ?11 million by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the European Commission. The marketplace had three timely objectives. First, to bring the applied research and industry closer together and under one umbrella. Second, to create stronger partnerships between European Union (EU) and Mediterranean countries. Third, to promote the culture of science and innovation. The event's forums and exhibitions brought together a crowd of contrasting interests and ages but with the overall focus being innovation in science and technology. In the opening speech, Hany Helal, minister of higher education and scientific research, spoke of a long-term goal as he said, "Our vision is to build an economy based on knowledge and we know that this is something we can't accomplish overnight. With the Egyptian-French science year starting about a week ago, it seems science is in focus this year. With topics as diverse as science communications, the region's solar energy future, and the current status of climate change efforts after the recent Copenhagen summit, visitors were treated to many challenging and much-needed panel discussions. The most important keynote the marketplace visitors waited for was perhaps that of Tarek Kamel, the Egyptian minister of information and communications technology. "We need to make use of our talents and human capital to access global markets through partnership with Europe, Kamel said. He pointed that the opportunity of Egypt partnering with Europe is one of the biggest steps in exporting better ICT services and highlighted ICT's big role as a catalyst for other sectors of the industry. "Innovation is our new wave and our next challenge, he added. As part of the ministry's efforts to promote innovation, he talked about plans to open a new IBM nanotechnology center in a year and a Maadi technology park within a few months. "We don't have the luxury to do research for the sake of research. We have to work with the industry, Kamel said. With more Egyptian college students preferring the humanities to science, the marketplace aimed to promote science to school children in its kids' pavilion, an area where those interested in promoting science outside the curriculum met. About a hundred school children (from about a dozen government schools) visited the exhibits each day where they were guided to discover new ways to look at science through simple fun experiments. One such project was the EU-Egyptian partnership for physics teaching led by Dr Ehab Abdel Rahman from the American University in Cairo. Another was Rania Fahmy's science show where she captured the attention of a couple of hundred school children for about an hour or so with a series of interactive experiments. Rania Al-Abd who watched the show commented that "she had a fun a hands-on approach. It was an example of best practice. The closing session of the marketplace saw an awards ceremony for the best inventor and best young inventor from WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and another award from the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology. In a fitting final touch, two of the school children who showed excellence in practicing in Rania Fahmy's interactive science show were each awarded a USB microscope and a verbal reminder to "go into science not literature. Hanan Dowidar, RDI's deputy coordinator, told Daily News Egypt that she considered the event highly successful and that she hopes it becomes an annual event.
