UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

The Arab States
Box 17.5: Fellowships for budding inventors from the Gulf
The Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity
(i2 Institute) is the brainchild of Hayat
Sindi, co-founder of Diagnostics for All, a
non-profit company designated one of
the world’s ten most innovative biotech
companies in 2012 by FastCompany
magazine in the USA. Originally from Saudi
Arabia, Dr Sindi was the first woman from
the Gulf to obtain a PhD in biotechnology,
while she was studying at Cambridge
University (UK).
For Dr Sindi, ‘the Middle East has
to overcome huge barriers to
entrepreneurship’. Chief among these
are a lack of formal business skills among
scientists and engineers; a culturally
intrinsic fear of failure; a lack of potential
investors willing to provide the necessary
venture capital; and the fact that investors
in the region do not focus on sciencebased
ventures.
Dr Sindi founded the Institute for
Imagination and Ingenuity in 2011 to
accompany budding young inventors
from the region at the incubation stage of
their project. Her NGO helps them package
their idea and attract venture capital through
a three-stage fellowship programme, the
only one of its kind in the Arab world.
The first call for applications took place
in November 2012. Master’s and PhD
students were invited to apply for a grant
in one of four areas: water, energy, health
or environment. Some 50 candidates who
already held a local and international patent
for their idea were selected. They were then
invited to pitch their idea to an international
jury made up of scientists and business
leaders in February 2013. Ultimately, just
12 fellows were singled out to share a grant
of US$ 3−4 million; each was then assigned
a regional and global mentor to help him or
her develop a business plan.
The fellows were able to develop their
business plan during the first stage of
their eight-month fellowship, through
the entrepreneur programme run jointly
with Harvard Business School and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in the USA for a period of six weeks.
The second stage of their induction was
the social science programme. Here, they
met other fellows who had specialized in
social innovation, such in as the provision
of clean energy or water. All 12 fellows
were asked to come up with a solution to
a specific social problem. The aim of this
exercise was to give them confidence in
their ability to take on new challenges.
The third programme developed the
i2 fellows’ communication skills at MIT’s
Media Lab, teaching them how to sell
their project to different audiences and
how to speak in public.
In 2014, potential investors were invited
to a conference hosted by King Abdullah
Economic City in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)
to hear the fellows present their projects.
The deadline for the second round of
applications was end April 2014.
Source: www.i2institute.org; UNESCO (2013)
encourage innovation and the transfer and adaptation of
technology with commercial potential.
One interesting initiative is the Institute for Imagination and
Ingenuity founded by Makkah-born Dr Hayat Sindi in 2011; it is
striving to develop an entrepreneurial culture in the Arab world
through mentorship (Box 17.5).
Research to curb energy consumption
Saudi Arabia needs to engage in a serious deliberation about
its domestic energy consumption, which is expected to
increase by 250% by 2028. One-third of oil production was
being used domestically in 2012 and demand is growing
by about 7% per year, driven by increasing wealth, rapid
population growth and low domestic energy prices. The
OECD’s International Energy Agency recorded about
US$ 40 billion in domestic energy subsidies in 2011.The
government is cognizant of the problem. In 2010, it upgraded
the National Energy Efficiency Programme (launched in 2003)
to a permanent faciliity, the Saudi Energy Efficiency Centre.
In May 2015, the government announced a programme to
develop solar energy which should allow the country to
export gigawatts of electric power instead of fossil fuels.
The late King Abdullah was a keen proponent of education
and research. In 2007, he called for the establishment of an
independent centre to conduct objective research in the
field of energy. This gave rise to the King Abdullah Petroleum
Studies and Research Centre, which opened in Riyadh in 2013;
a Board of Trustees ensures the centre’s independence and
oversees its endowment. In 2009, Saudi Arabia launched the
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
SUDAN
Conflict and brain drain undermining
development
Sudan has been plagued by armed conflict in the past decade:
the conflict in Darfur, which lasted from 2003 until the signing
of a ceasefire agreement with rebel groups in 2010; and a longstanding
conflict in the south of the country, which resulted in the
establishment of South Sudan as an independent state in 2011.
Sudan has had its own academy of sciences since 2006 but
otherwise has struggled to consolidate its science system over
the past decade. One impediment is the loss of young talent
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