Egypt's young scientists participate in Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world's largest science competition for high school-aged students, will take place in Indianapolis, USA, from May 7 - 13.

"ISEF is a leading initiative set to find and encourage young people around the world to explore science and technology in their higher education and careers," said Karim Fahmy, General Manager for Intel Egypt, LEVANT and North Africa. "Based this year on the theme 'Winning with Science', the competition will attract 1,400 top science and technology high school students representing 40 countries, as well as 1,200 expert judges and a panel of Nobel Laureates, and an attendance of 5,000 enthusiasts. Furthermore, I'm delighted that this will be the second successive year that Egypt has gone to the finals."

Mohamed Alaa Mekky, from Abdallah Nadim School in Alexandria, participates with a swimming Life Box. Mohamed chose the theme 'Run to Save Lives Instead of Just Being There' for his individual project.

"How to help survivors in the sea after a ship sinks was my concern," explained Mohamed. "My goal was to keep those people alive as long as possible, by having Life Boxes that are thrown automatically from the ship whilst it is sinking. Each Life Box acts as a small robot that will swim towards those that are stranded, and will locate them by small transceivers that are attached to their life jackets. In addition, the battery enabled Life Box is equipped with a light source and a device to scare dangerous fish away."

Egypt's other participants, the team of Aya Mohamed Attaby and Nawal Hossam El Boghdady, from Dar Al Tarbiah School in Cairo, has looked at how best to tackle rice straw burning.

"The burning of rice straw, and the dense cloud it produces, has proven to be extremely harmful to human health in Egypt," explains Aya. "Our aim is to prevent the formation of this cloud by using rice straw as a natural wealth to produce biogas and electricity and to use the straw as an agriculture medium for growing mushrooms. It is also a simple and economic technique used that can be simply applied by the farmer," adds Nawal.

Last year Intel sponsored students and two science fairs in Egypt, and intend to increase the number of students and fairs next year with the help of Egypt's Ministry of Education.