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Formation of startups and new companies
Commercial exploitation of science, technology, and novelty
System of laws, regulations, strategies, and funding priorities
Discovery and creation of new knowledge of the natural world
Application of new knowledge towards useful social ends
By: Athar OsamaPublished on SciDev.Net on 15 December 2011
Arab Spring revolutionaries turning to governance must adopt knowledge and innovation as barometers for progress, says Athar Osama.
As revolutions swept countries and shook governments across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region this year, they created opportunities for greater public voice in governance. Tunisia, for example, recently went through an election, and the Egyptian people are in the process of electing an assembly whose job is to write a new constitution.
And as revolutionaries turn to governance, they will have to address the socioeconomic and cultural challenges facing tens of millions of people: poverty with no prospect of prosperity, a burgeoning young population, poor employment opportunities, a culture of entitlement, and growing radicalism. These will be the real test of their leadership.
Science and innovation must feature high on their agendas. There are promising signs, such as Tunisia’s $16.5 million science and technology boost, and the pronouncements of Egypt’s caretaker government that it will open Zewail City of Science and Technology, a new science city named after Egyptian Nobel Laureate Ahmed Zewail.
But the capability of the revolutionaries and their countries is questionable in one key area. Can they nurture the science needed to create entrepreneurial opportunities and jobs?
Deploying science and innovation to bring prosperity will require deep and long-lasting changes in the way society views science and conducts everyday business.
Published at: World Conference for Science Journalists 2011
A famed Egyptian-born scientist has challenged journalists in the Arab world to dispel what he called a widespread and biased idea that Islam is anti-science. Dr Ahmed Zewail, a 1999 Nobel laureate in chemistry, was speaking June 27 at the start of the three-day World Conference of Science Journalists in Doha, Qatar.
“There is nothing fundamental in Islam against science. It is all part of the unfair perception about Islam and Arabs in general,” Zewail told about 700 listeners during a keynote lecture to kick off the conference. He said journalists in the region bear part of the responsibility to hel...
By: Ziauddin Sardar
Lecture at the Royal Society, 2007
At the end of the tenth century, a brilliant scientist left his home town of Basra to pursue an ambitious project in Egypt. He’d noticed how, seasonally, the river Nile flooded large parts of the delta. But in winter water levels fell so low cultivation was almost impossible. What, he thought, if the surplus flood water could be stored and used when most needed? He devised a scheme - to regulate the Nile, so that the people could derive benefit at its ebb and flow.’ His plan required building a three-way embankment dam near Aswan. He sent the proposal to the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim in Cairo. The Cal...
By: Pervez Hoodbhoy
Published in Physics Today (August, 2007)
“If Muslim societies are to develop technology instead of just using it, the ruthlessly competitive global marketplace will insist on not only high skill levels but also intense social work habits. The latter are not easily reconcilable with religious demands made on a fully observant Muslim’s time, energy, and mental concentration: The faithful must participate in five daily congregational prayers, endure a month of fasting that taxes the body, recite daily from the Qur’an, and more. Although such duties orient believers admirably well toward success in the life hereafter, they make worldly success...
By Golareh Habibi
In Science Creative Quarterly
At present, when many think of the Middle East, the first word that comes to mind is oil, following close after unfortunately is war. However, the Middle East has a rich history in the development of science. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so strangely, Islam, the prominent religion of Middle Easterners, is intimately connected with the study and development of science. A study, therefore, of Islam’s influence on science is an enlightening journey.
Never before or since has the Middle East been so profoundly shaken by the words of a simple merchant from Mecca in Arabian Peninsula: Muhammad ibn Abdullah recited the verses se...
By: Athar Osama
Published on SciDev.Net on 15 December 2011
Arab Spring revolutionaries turning to governance must adopt knowledge and innovation as barometers for progress, says Athar Osama.
As revolutions swept countries and shook governments across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region this year, they created opportunities for greater public voice in governance. Tunisia, for example, recently went through an election, and the Egyptian people are in the process of electing an assembly whose job is to write a new constitution.
And as revolutionaries turn to governance, they will have to address the socioeconomic and cultural challenges facing ten...
By: Frank Lehner
Published in Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy on 30 August 2011.
The idea of generating solar energy on a large scale in the sun-intensive countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to satisfy their own increasing energy demand and to export surplus energy to Europe as advocated in the DESERTEC concept1 has publicly received much attention in some countries, particularly in Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and also substantial support from their governments. Besides the DESERTEC Foundation, an industrial consortium (Dii GmbH) was founded in 2009 which consists of major European and MENA companies to push this project further b...
By: Dr. Athar Osama
Muslim-Science.Com met with Tan Sri Dr. Omar Abdur Rahman, Mahathir’s Science Advisor for over a decade and half and, the “prime mover” behind Mahathir Mohammed’s vision of a Knowledge-driven Malaysia. A deeply humble man, Tan Sri Omar insists that Mahathir was a science policymaker par excellence in his own right and that he would hardly have needed a science advisor. However, he played a critical role in providing scientific credibility to Mahathir’s plans and helping the Prime Minister reach out to the scientific community to build support for his policies.
As Malaysia’s first and longest serving Science Advisor – a position t...
