Support Measures That Grounded Us
Support Measures That Grounded Us
From the book: City, Data, Intelligence
In 2014, to cover the costs of completing the Shahr Online prototype, we applied for a loan from one of the innovation-support funds. However, the disbursement was delayed by a full year—a delay that rendered all prior efforts largely ineffective and pushed the project into a completely different phase. Meanwhile, the medical university had still refused to sign a formal contract.
By the time the fund contacted us to announce their readiness to disburse the loan, the project had moved beyond prototyping and entered the infrastructure and commercialization phase. When I explained the new circumstances to the fund’s officer, I received no clear guidance. They referred to standard procedures that only covered prototyping costs and showed no flexibility regarding the project’s changed phase.
Even when I suggested returning the funds, the response was non-technical and focused more on my gender than the project’s technical logic. Despite ongoing correspondence and repeated requests for extended repayment schedules, increased amounts, or revised disbursement timelines, our inquiries went largely unanswered.
When the second phase of the loan was finally disbursed, the conditions remained unchanged. As a result, many of our checks bounced due to coordination issues, marking the start of a financial crisis.
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