By Youssef Faltas
CAIRO: On Tuesday, Egyptian science enthusiasts were delighted to attend the launch of the Egyptian version of the FameLab competition in its second year.
FameLab, originally created by and gained international popularity through the UK’s Cheltenham Science Festival, was introduced to Egypt last year by The British Council and the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) program. The idea of the competition is simple yet both entertaining and effective.
As the British Council describes it, “FameLab takes science out of the classroom and makes it fun. It encourages young people with a passion for science and technology to share their enthusiasm and knowledge with the general public.”
Participants in the competition deliver a three-minute talk related to any field of science. The panel of judges will be simply looking for exciting and engaging talks that can be understood by a general public adult audience.
The competition will take place in Cairo, Alexandria, and Assiut. In Cairo, the audience is invited to attend the event in Sawy Culture Wheel on Dec. 4 and 11 with the possible addition of a third event yet to be determined. In Alexandria, Bibliotheca Alexandrina will host the event on Dec. 18, and Assiut University will host it on Feb. 26.
Hanan Dowidar, RDI’s deputy coordinator, told Daily News Egypt that in FameLab’s second year the focus is on increasing the quality of the talks as well as audience participation.
Ahmed El-Fakahany, a 30-year-old last year finalist working in Information Technology security with interests in Physics and Astronomy, highlighted the impact of his participation in FameLab for audience at the launch event. “FameLab helped me to grasp how different people understand science in different ways which made me a better science communicator,” he said.
This comes very close to how Abdelhamid El-Zohiery, the RDI program coordinator, and Engineer Mohamed El-Sawy from Sawy Culture Wheel, define the goal of FameLab Egypt.
“We introduced FameLab in Egypt to help scientists interact with society better. This way we may build scientific literacy so that the people may have the opportunity to converse with decision makers,” said El-Zohiery.
“From my last year experience with FameLab, I saw it creating a bridge between science and society,” added El-Sawy.
Last year’s winner was Hazem Shoirah whose winning talk ‘The Power of Imagination’ was about the basis of this impressive human capacity in Neuroscience. After FameLab Egypt ended last year, Shoirah went on to represent Egypt in the FameLab Grand Finals in Cheltenham, UK, and he ranked third among 13 contestants from various countries.
The competition is certainly attracting applicants in Cairo as well as in Alexandria and Assiut. This year’s FameLab saw an increase in the number of applicants to about 600 compared to nearly 400 last year.
Mark Stephens, the newly appointed director of the British Council in Egypt, remarked that this increase indicates “a real hunger and interest to communicate science in Egypt.”
Before FameLab’s launch, the RDI program also exhibited some of its funded projects to the audience. Established in late 2007 through a grant of €11 million by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the European Commission, the RDI is a major promoter of science in Egypt that aims to close the gap between science and industry.
The scope of the exhibit included various projects funded for innovations in diverse fields such as medicine, solar power, nanotechnology, solutions for the rice bran problem in Egypt. In its initial phase of 51 funded projects, RDI has helped many innovators design prototypes for products which Egyptian industry need. However, the actual implementation of these projects remains for the moment pending governmental cooperation and adoption.
One example is an Event Data Recorder for trucks, developed by Alfa Electronics, that monitors and records a truck’s speed. “A new traffic law will pass in May 2011 requiring all trucks to carry such a device but the Egyptian industry hasn’t manufactured one yet. Instead they rely on imported speed monitors,” explained Engineer Emad El-Shewekh. Alfa Electronics is now coordinating with the Traffic Department to adopt their prototype.
While the first phase of RDI projects will conclude by the end of 2011, in a few months RDI will launch an overlapping second phase of funded projects this time with a larger budget of €20 million.
With their work on the science to industry link through their support of innovation and on the science to society link through programs such as FameLab, the RDI program is translating the words of its coordinator El-Zohiery into action: “We must build scientific literacy so that our country may truly develop.”
For more information on FameLab Egypt visit: http://www.britishcouncil.org/egypt-science-famelab-2.htm on RDI visit: http://www.rdi.eg.net/
