"Supporting the Emerging Music Bands in the Arab World Grant - Grant and 1/2" is a grant aiming at encouraging new and emerging music bands in the Arab world to develop their music artworks and help them take serious steps to record their first album. The first edition of the project was held in 2017 in Alexandria, which has been characterized by a strong musical movement in the last ten years. Fifteen music bands have applied for the grant. The selection process was very difficult because of the approximate level between the applicants, in addition to the quality of applications submitted. Qarar Ezala band was excluded from the evaluation due to actual steps they already took toward producing their music album before the beginning of the grant call. The committee recommended that a supplementary grant be made to Qarar Ezala to complete the album. Four bands were short listed:(Sorour, Safsafa, Hi Dam and Hageen). The committee has finally selected Hageen band to win the opportunity to record their first album in 2017. This year's selection committee included Bassem Abu Arab (music booker), Nour Ashour (musician), Darcy Sprengel (music researcher), Emad Mabrouk (curator and founder of Platform), Mohamed Tamraz (sound and music engineer).