By Nawara Fattahova

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Science Club (KSC) will be hosting the 12th International Invention Fair in the Middle East from Feb 16-19, 2020. The fair is being held under the patronage of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, and the organizers expect even more participants this year.

Secretary General of KSC and member of the organizing committee Dr Yahya Abdaal appreciated the generous sponsorship of HH the Amir of this fair since its first edition in 2007. "This generous support made this fair rank as the second biggest and most popular fair for inventors in the world. Without this support, we wouldn't have reached this success, which is a benefit for the whole country," he said during a press conference held on Monday.

The four-day fair will include various social and scientific activities. "The main purpose of this fair is to support inventors and improve their skills and creativity. Also, some new sponsors are participating this year including Kuwait University, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training and others. We expect to have more countries participating in this fair as well," stressed Abdaal.

Treasurer of KSC Aws Al-Nisef said the main reason for holding the International Invention Fair in the Middle East is to offer an investment and marketing opportunity for inventions to be realized. In the past, Kuwaiti inventors didn't find support or adoption of their inventions to develop into commercial projects, but today they do. This inspired the title of the fair: 'Investors meeting Inventors'," he explained.

"The fair attracts businessmen and industrial and economic bodies, which is considered a support of KSC for the inventors. This fair is the first of its kind to present such huge financial prizes exceeding $50,000. These prizes were set to encourage and support inventors," Nisef added.

"The main prize is $15,000, KSC's prize is $10,000, International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva presents a $5,000 prize and the GCC Patent Office presents 50,000 Saudi riyals, in addition to a prize presented by the World Intellectual Property Organization and another prize by the International Federation of Inventors' Associations," concluded Nisef.

Head of Development and Competitive Programs at KSC Mohammed Al-Saffar said participation in the fair is still open. "Early participation has closed, but late participation is still available and will end in two weeks. Currently, we don't have the exact number of participants as we are still accepting registrations, but we expect the number to be higher than last year. The huge attendance in this fair in the past years reflects its success. We started preparing for this event at the end of the previous fair," he pointed out.

"The participation process starts with submitting the invention to the organizing committee, which will then classify the invention into one of the 22 categories of the fair. The invention should have an international patent certificate and it shouldn't have previously participated in this fair in the past years," added Saffar.

Participating inventions must adhere to certain criteria. "The judging committee consists of specialists from the field from various institutions and nationalities with long experience. Various criteria will be considered for the inventions, including when they were invented, creativity and ability to be marketed," he explained.