Qatar Science & Technology Park (QTSP) is a home for international technology companies in Qatar, and an incubator of start-up technology businesses. Established in 2004 as a part of Qatar Foundation, the purpose of the science park is to spur development of Qatar’s knowledge economy.
QSTP was inaugurated on 16 March 2009.
QSTP functions by providing office and lab space to tenant companies, in a complex of multi-user and single-user buildings, and by providing professional services and support programs to those companies. In September 2005 the Government of Qatar passed a law making the science park a "free zone", allowing foreign companies to set up a 100 percent owned entity free from tax and duties.
A key feature of QSTP is that it is co-located at Qatar Foundation's Education City with leading international universities. These include Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth. The science park helps its tenant companies to collaborate with the universities, and acts as an incubator for spin-out ventures from the universities (and other sources).
Qatar Foundation itself was established in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar, and has been chaired since by his wife Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned.
Tenants of QSTP are required to make technology development their main activity but can also trade commercially. The first companies to join QSTP were EADS, ExxonMobil, GE, Microsoft, Rolls-Royce, Shell, Total and iHorizons.
The design architect of QSTP is Woods Bagot.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)