Dr. Sadigh: In the coming days, we will announce the first call of the year for applications for Roshd Grant

At the beginning of this meeting, Dr. Mohammad Jafar Sadigh Damghanizadeh, the advisor to the Minister of Communications and Information Technology and the president of ICT Park, while welcoming the quests, pointed out the challenges of financing the DEDN’s Roshd Grant and emphasized the need to learn from the last years’ experience in implementing the experimental call for the Roshd Grant and said: it is worth noting that the process has commenced and we plan to announce the first call for Roshd Grant in the coming days.

Expressing his interest in development of provincial controls over the process of implementing the DEDN’s Roshd Grant, he added: As long as you are operating as an interested park, ICT Park will cooperate with you, however, the depth of this cooperation will be determined by the amount of effort devoted by the provincial park.

“We don't do big jobs; however, we try to do good jobs. Accordingly, we are not interested in drastically increasing the statistics and we prefer establishing 5 good companies rather than offering 50 grants which may not result in even one successful company”, Dr. Sadigh continued.

The president of the Information and Communication Technology Park pointed out that in the trial call, the grant numbers were low, but they should be corrected in the next calls, and emphasized the importance of precision in determining the numbers by the admissions council and judges.

Dr. Sadigh further announced the prioritization of technologies by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and said: “in this way, these technologies will be bought from the private sector, however, it is necessary to define the target market so that the private sector can properly proceed with the planning and marketing process.

“Based on the new policies, for the first time, the Product Development Grant will be awarded to DEDN member companies along with the Roshd Grant,” the president of Park ICT noted. He further explained: The Product Development Grant has two advantages: first, the recipient should not necessarily be a start-up company; it includes existing companies as well. Second, the amount of this grant is twice as high as the Roshd grant. This grant was previously only awarded in ICT Park, however, currently we are offering it to the DEDN family; that is, the Roshd grant is given to young companies and the Product Development Grant is granted to all companies.

In the continuation of this meeting, the president of ICT Park gave additional explanations about the process of accepting companies by the Science and Technology Parks themselves in coordination with the admission council and payment processes. “One of the previous mistakes have been made by the science and technology parks is confusing grant and loans, however it should be noted that the loans are brought by the private sector. We are planning to offer a two-year loan from that sector, which is a great help for them,” he reminded.

In the continuation of the meeting, the question-and-answer session was held by the presence of the heads of the parks that are members of the DEDN, Dr. Sadigh, President of ICT Park, Engineer Yazdanpanah, Vice President of Technology Development of ICT Park and Dr. Seyedzadeh, Director of DEDN. The mechanism of the Grant and the provision of facilities and resources by ICT Park were among the focus of Q & A section.

At the end of this meeting, top representatives of 1401 Roshd Grant were appreciated and thanked for their efforts.

It is worth mentioning that DEDN is a network of science and technology parks, growth centers and accelerators officially licensed throughout the country, which cooperate with ICT Park to improve the level of activities in the field of information and communication technology and develop the digital economy.

This network was one of the initiatives of ICT Park created with the aim of synergizing the capacities and capabilities of science and technology parks across the country with the cooperation of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.

With the aim of helping the development of its members, especially growth centers and active accelerators, the DEDN has extensive promotion and support programs centered on network members, one of the most important of which is Roshd Grant. This grant is dedicated to the development of ICT products of the companies based in the growth centers of the DEDN.