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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: Editors, Muslim-Science.Com
Nature Middle East on its blog titled “House of Wisdom” reports in a post titled Zewail City of Science and Technology:
“The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has announced plans to build the “Zewail Science and Technology City”, a research and innovation -centered project that Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail has envisioned in since early 1990′s.
The ministry has not provided much details of the project, but did mention that Nile University, whose turbulent future was a source of much controversy recently amidst accusations of corruption in its founding, will be the nucleus of this project.
Zewail is scheduled to arrive in Egypt next week where he will unveil details of the project. The Egyptian daily Al-Shorouk has reported that he is putting together a board of trustees of reputed scientists and Nobel laureates.
Meanwhile, the minister of higher education and scientific research, Amr Salama, also announced that UNESCO have offered full backing for the project. The type of support it will offer, however, was not announced.
There is still little information to go on, but hopefully next week we would have more information to report on regarding the project. Suffice to say for now that there is probably much to be excited about here. Zewail’s project was indefinitely delayed during the previous regime and has only resurfaced again post the January 25 revolution in Egypt which toppled Mubarak after a 30-year rule.”
Shafaa Abdoun, writing in Daily News Egypt, on June 1, 2011 provided some more details of the project:
Nature: Editoria: Cash costs
Nature 461, 11-12 (3 September 2009) | doi:10.1038/461011b; Published online 2 September 2009
Massive funding for Pakistan’s ailing universities holds many lessons for other developing nations.
Eight years ago, a task force advising Pakistan’s former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, laid out a bold plan to revitalize the country’s moribund research system: initiate a fivefold increase in public funding for universities, with a special emphasis on science, technology and engineering. The proposal was a radical departure from conventional wisdom on the economics of developing nations, which favours incremental inv...
By: Athar Osama
Published in SciDev.Net (on 3 November 2006)
A study of scientific research in the Muslim world shows that it lags far behind the rest of the world, but there are encouraging signs of improvement, says Athar Osama.
For decades, Muslim countries have struggled to understand the value of scientific and technological research. But a recent study by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on the status of scientific research in its 57 member states sheds some light on the nature of the ‘science deficit’ in these countries.
The study is the first attempt by the OIC to try and quantify its members’ scientific output and productivity...
By: Athar Osama
Published in DinarStandard.com, July 2006
In the 1980s and 1990s, Silicon Valley propelled the world into the computer and internet age and, in the process, captivated the world’s imagination as a model region for organizing economic and innovative activity. Since then, leaders around the world have tried to create economic clusters—their own versions of Silicon Valleys—around the world in an attempt to replicate “Silicon Valley Phenomenon” in their own backyards.
Economic Clusters: An Age-old Phenomenon Revitalized
To be sure, the phenomenon on economic and technology clusters is not new. Economic clusters date back at least to the great Hellen...
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...
