The Center’s innovation system includes a series of four basic areas that are outlined as follows:

Ideas

This area concerns all the students and focuses attention on thinking and brainstorming skills and on generating creative ideas. Introductory and motivational lectures are presented to help disseminate the culture of innovation. In this area, students benefit mainly from the Center’s training facilities. At this stage, outstanding ideas are commended and then subsequently recommended for the following phase.

Design

This area concerns students who have been able to achieve distinction in the preceding phase. It is geared to research and assess the published ideas in the concerned field of interest, investigate the relevant scientific aspects and develop the creative dimensions of such ideas. At this stage, the student is expected to produce a detailed outline of the project comprising the central problem and the need to solve it, along with the criteria and specifications that must be contained in the product. At this stage, the student may benefit from additional services in the Center such as the design, technical and scientific support facilities in the project’s respective field. At the end of this phase, a full-fledged design of the project must be completed.

Implementation

Upon completion of the project design, the student submits an implementation proposal to the Scientific Committee explaining the design, while taking into account the ethics of the profession, the legal regulations, the intellectual property rights, and the human and environmental considerations. Once the project is approved for funding, the implementation budget is specified, and thus the student may have access to additional facilities within the Center including the hardware, machinery and engineering components store (within the project’s allocated budget) in addition to practical advising by the Center’s technicians. At the end of this phase, the practical model is developed, tested, and improved.

Marketing

At this stage, the successful practical models are funded through the feasibility study steps involving the product, marketing basics, and search for funding sources towards transforming the model into a pilot value-added project.