After nearly 20 years of sponsorship, the technology company Intel will no longer support the International Science and Engineering Fair, currently known as the Intel ISEF, starting in 2019. The Society for Science & the Public, the nonprofit that runs the fairs, is launching a competitive process to find a new sponsor.
The news comes two years after Intel announced it would drop its backing of the Science Talent Search, a contest for high school seniors also run by the Society for Science & the Public.
Both moves are evidence of a shift in attention, at Intel and in many schools, from more traditional science fairs to other initiatives like the Hour of Code, which offers computer science activities, and maker “faires” at which people make and showcase engineering projects. At the same time, the ISEF remains the largest K-12 science contest in the world.
