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
Innovation spaces come in many shapes and sizes. Starting from the legendary Silicon Valley in Northern California, to Route 128 in Boston, Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia, and Bangalore in India, innovation spaces have been a talk of popular business and technology press, but have often defied formal analysis and policy models. Part of the lure of the Silicon Valley, is in its culture, its willingness to accept failure, and the eagerness of its investors to take a chance. At a smaller scale too, innovation spaces are often defined by the electrifying energy, that is often ‘in the air.’
In the Muslim World, like in the rest of the world, the last decade or so has seen the emergence of innovation spaces, that have begun to exude this electrifying energy, this daring passion, and the entrepreneurial spirit critical to success. Here is a list of the most exciting ones among them…
By: Maheen Hasan, Editor - Muslim-Science.Com
Muslim-Science.Com has the pleasure of presenting to you, the first ever List of ‘Top-20 Most Influential Women in Science in the Islamic World’. These are truly the unsung and little known heroines of the Islamic World whose contribution to the development of science and innovation of the Islamic World is no less than any others…
Our list encompasses 20 Remarkable Women who have performed amazing feats during the course of their careers. These pertain to all five main regions of the Islamic World, namely, South East Asia, South and Central Asia, Gulf and Persia, Maghreb and North Africa, and North Am...
Editors Note: With the events in Egypt turning south after the deposition of an elected government and re-imposition of de-facto Martial Law, it is perhaps, opportunate to review what The Royal Society said late last year in its Atlas of Islamic World Science and Innovation Project report on Egypt. Here is the summary of the document. - A.O.
It is not often that a country is faced with the prospect of rebuilding from the ground up. Egypt’s recent revolution – notwithstanding the many and inevitable challenges it presents – has ushered in an era of unprecedented hope and expectation. This report assesses the current state of science, technology and innovat...
By:Athar Osama
Published on SciDev.Net on 12 October 2012
Muslim countries must alter their stance on the social sciences if they are to use technology to its full potential, says Athar Osama.
The last two centuries have reduced global hunger, poverty, and disease in ways that were previously unimaginable. The accelerating pace of technological development — computing, the Internet, the information and genetic engineering revolutions — only promises greater progress in coming decades.
But getting these developments to the people who need them is far from an exact science, as recent development experience has shown . For example, mechanisms for producing c...
By: Athar Osama
Published on SciDev.Net on 11 April 2012
Several Muslim countries rank among the world‘s most efficient innovators. They must build on this success, says Athar Osama.
Ever since the global business school INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires) started producing the Global Innovation Index reports in 2007, Islamic countries have performed rather unremarkably.
In the last three years, for instance, the top-3 performers have been the United Arab Emirates (ranked 24th for 2009-10), Qatar (24th in 2008-9) and Malaysia (31st in 2011).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top ten among Islamic countries are predominantly oil-r...
The Islamic world’s current science effort is on life support and without major ‘surgery’ could be yet another policy failure, says Athar Osama.
In 2007, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) created the Science, Technology and Innovation Organisation (STIO) to jumpstart science cooperation among its 57 member countries. Three years later, a founding meeting approved an annual budget of US$70 million, with four founding members — Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and and Syria — committing US$5 million each to the budget.
To date, 20 countries have joined STIO — but none has honoured its financial commitment, according to the organisatio...
By Zakri Abdul Hamid –
Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of Malaysia
For Malaysia, the past three decades have been a period of rapid and sustained growth. Measuring growth with the traditional Gross Domestic Product yardstick, Malaysia’s economy has increased more than a hundredfold. Over the past four decades, we have averaged nearly 7% annual growth. Poverty rates have fallen from 49%, to less than 4%. Per-capita GDP has risen from US$370, to more than US$9,000.
This growth has been matched by a fundamental change in the structure of our economy. Like many Asian countries, we have moved from a basis of agriculture and raw commodities to a multi-sector eco...
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...
