Minister of Communication and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel together with Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Dr. Hani Helal witnessed today the opening of the third meeting of Information Technology Academia Collaboration (ITAC) fellowship program.
The meeting was organized by Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), the program initiator. It focused this year on boosting intellectual dialogue and discussing the joint research interests between IT companies and research centers and universities.
During the meeting, some prominent projects selected to join the technology incubators supported by Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) at the Smart Village were announced. The projects will be sponsored and incubated to be potential future companies capable of competing in Egyptian and international markets.
Dr. Kamel and Dr. Helal checked 20 graduation projects sponsored during the academic year 2007/2008. The researchers received merit certificates from the two ministers.
ITAC, launched for the first time by ITIDA in 2006 under the auspices of Dr. Kamel, aims to promote cooperation in the areas of IT Industry and academia through linking academic research to the industry and market needs and building networks of research and development (R&D). Such collaborative research programs bring value to IT companies, universities, researchers and the technology community as a whole.
The program includes 11 research modules set by the ITAC supervising committee which include information security, integrated systems, economies of information security and IT outsourcing.
ITAC supports six main programs; the four programs of Product Development Projects, Advanced Research Projects (ARP), Patent Filing Program (PFP) and ITIDA Fellowships are dedicated to graduates. The two other programs are offered to undergraduates as graduation projects and summer training.
A total of five million and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds have been allocated to the project.
The number of students from different universities who participated in summer training increased to reach 554 this year. In 2007, 306 students received the training compared to 194 ones in 2006. Faculty of Computer Science at Ain Shams University proved to be one of the major participants in ITAC.
The total number of projects funded currently through the Product Development Projects program accounts to 13.
Four projects are funded through ARP. Two projects are funded via the ITIDA Fellowship program. Twenty projects out of 110 sponsored during the academic years 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 will be honored.
