A number of eight out of 31 research projects conducted jointly by ICT companies and research entities, and submitted for rounds 19, 20 and 21 of the Information Technology Academia Collaboration (ITAC) program—affiliated to the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA)—have won ITAC funding.
The Program aims to develop Egypt’s ICT industry by funding research projects based on collaboration among researchers in universities, research centers and ICT companies, contributing to linking scientific research and the IT industry with market needs.
The Program focuses on three main research categories, the first of which is devoted to nine strategic research areas, including network security, electronic design, ICT for security, ICT for transportation, ICT for health, ICT for agriculture, ICT for energy, ICT for education and ICT for the disabled.
The second category comprises six research areas representing latest technologies, research interests and trends in the global ICT market, including mobile and computer applications, cloud computing, content analysis and social networks applications, Internet of Things (IoT), data analysis, interactive computing, gamifications in various fields. The third category includes specific research points as requested by government agencies, ministries or governorates.
Among the most prominent projects—submitted by six universities and four companies—that won ITIDA funding in ITAC rounds 19, 20 and 21, was the project of analyzing points of views and identifying positive and negative opinions of Arabic blogs on specific subjects or products via using artificial intelligence, Arabic language processing and automated learning.
Another advanced research project winning the fund was a system for classifying voice calls using big data in call centers to improve the quality of customer service. Another preliminary research project that managed to create drops using a microfluidic chip to be used in micro- genetic analyses, for future use in gene analysis devices won the funding.
Testiside—another project of advanced research category— also received ITAC funding. It is a platform for automating Arabic-language software testing through which the software team can write its own programming needs or testing sentences in a language known as “Cucumber”, which the testing platform can recognize and implement.
Moreover, a technology application project— an advanced research category— that can track the attendance of employees through face recognition using mobile technology won the Program fund. This is in addition to a preliminary research project that explores the possibility of enhancing the applications of the digital market in Egypt through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms and computer education, resulting in sales that meets the needs of users.
Moreover, another project in the category of preliminary research projects in the field of technological applications for agriculture purposes, won ITAC fund. It is a system for soil sterilization using low-cost microwaves, which reduces reliance on pesticides and contributes to obtaining a pesticide-free agricultural product, thus saving effort and money and generating an export profit for technological and agricultural services from Egypt to all over the world.
Another preliminary research projects, aiming to design and implement a "new secured platform that can be integrated into IoT network”, won ITAC fund. The platform supports different levels of security and can be integrated with different communication platforms.
Since its inception in 2006 until the current round, ITAC funded 122 research projects carried out in cooperation with 17 universities and 63 companies, resulting in a number of success stories, bringing about Egyptian technological products and solutions in various international markets such as USA and Japan.
