The Jeddah-based Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity (i2 Institute) invited Monday young innovators from Saudi Arabia to submit their applications for the i2 Fellowship program for 2014. Launched in November last year, the i2 Fellowship is the region's premier and first of its kind program created by Dr. Hayat Sindi, the Founder and CEO of i2 Institute, to support young innovators from the Middle East to transform their patents into a profitable business. It is an 8-month program where i2 Fellows will be hosted for the first six weeks inside the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-Lab), working with fellow entrepreneurs, supported by several Harvard Business School faculty members, including several Nobel prize winners, world-class authors, experts and practitioners. The other part of the i2 Fellowship Program will take place at the MIT Media Lab and each fellow will be able to visit and explore some of the Media Lab experiments and collaborate with faculty members and research assistants, or even become engaged in research. By the conclusion of the Fellowship Program, around 12 Fellows will have prepared their respective business venture proposals that they will pitch at the Business Venture Conference, the i2 Institute's flagship product. Dr. Hayat Sindi, the Founder and CEO of i2 Institute, said “with young educated people constitute the largest segment of the Saudi Arabia's population, it is time to invest in their untapped talents and offer them the appropriate environment and the best conditions to foster innovation, economic and social change.”
“It is the Fellowship program which is a meticulously designed and carefully planned to help Fellow scientists, technologists and engineers in the Middle East in energy, health, water and environment sectors to develop their potential in three key aspects: the business idea, the approach to entrepreneurship, as well as their leadership skills,” she added. — SG
