Intel has stopped supporting science fairs and student exhibits.

Science fairs in the United States are a kind of initiation into the scientific life for many students. Over the past 60 years, competitions and prestigious awards have been a kind of incentive for scientifically advanced youth. Such exhibitions received particular popularity and a powerful impetus to the development in the 1950s after the satellite crisis and the perception of the technological lag in the United States in the field of education. Now scientific exhibitions are experiencing not the easiest times, because their format seems to be more boring in comparison with the hackathons that are so popular now or the championships among programmers.

As if confirming this trend, the long-time sponsor of various scientific exhibitions for high school students stopped supporting one of the largest events in this field. Intel, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic devices and computer components, has announced it will stop sponsoring the International Science and Engineering Fair , an international science and technology exhibition.
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The nonprofit group that organizes and conducts fairs and exhibitions, the Society for Science and the Public, has begun to search for a new sponsor for a global competition that would commit to invest at least $ 15 million a year over the next five years. Maya Ajmera, president of Society for Science and the Public, said that Intel is “the most unusual partner in the last 20 years.” She also added that her company did not give Intel a reason to make such a decision.

What actually caused the termination of sponsorship, the company does not explain. Its representatives only noted that they “are very proud” of such a long-term cooperation - Intel began supporting the national fair in 1998, replacing the atomic giant Westinghouse . A year earlier, Intel had pledged to support global competitions, which then did not have a major sponsor.

The international science competition has a rich heritage. About 60% of its participants are American high school students, some of whom subsequently made a serious contribution to the development of science and technology. The list of exhibitors at one time included the names of a Nobel laureate and biochemist from Duke University Paul Modric (Paul Modrich), a physicist from Columbia University and the author of popular science books Brian Greene, as well as computer scientists from companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft.

However, you should not consider the decision of one company as a trend in the industry as a whole. Other large companies do not intend to refuse to sponsor already existing activities for high school students and successfully continue to develop their own scientific and technical exhibitions. For example, Google has been supporting the Google Science Fair since 2011, a worldwide online competition for children from 13 to 18 years old.

At the same time, it should be noted that with the development of technologies that, over time, put more and more serious emphasis on programming, giant companies are becoming interested in projects that have a more pronounced applied nature. Many of them are now expanding the support of seminars and championships for programmers.

The fact that Intel plans to end the sponsorship of the exhibition was announced back in 2015, when the company decided to suspend support for Science Talent Search , a prestigious scientific mathematics contest for high school students. Among its former participants are eight Nobel Prize winners, as well as eminent scientists and university professors. The new sponsor of the event was the company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals , specializing in the field of biotechnology.

There are controversies on sponsorship issues among current and former Intel executives. While the discontinuation of the sponsorship of the science exhibition was approved by the executive director Brian Krzanic, the former executive director Craig Barrett disagreed with the decision. He believes that the cessation of support for scientific exhibitions that educate young innovators can present Intel as "obsolete."

When the current leadership refused to support Science Talent Search, Craig Barrett said that the company is now more interested in applied things, like Maker Faire , a project in which people of all ages can demonstrate their self-made engineering projects.

College teachers believe that science fairs and fairs help students develop life-saving knowledge and skills. As part of these activities, students have to use critical thinking, experiment, develop conversational and presentation skills, and persevere.

Inel's retreat from sponsoring traditional science fairs raises the question of how the largest technology companies should set the direction for the development of science and contribute to the improvement of technical education in the future. The role of scientific exhibitions in the field of education is difficult to overestimate, and perhaps in the near future we will be watching their transformation.

Intel continues to support other programs in the field of science and engineering technologies: in 2015, the corporation promised to allocate $ 300 million for the fund, which is working to attract women and minorities in the technology industry. She also invests about $ 45 million a year in university programs, including joint research and scholarships.