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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 Osama
Malaysian Government established the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) in 1992 with a view to “spearhead[ing] the development of technology businesses in Malaysia.” MTDC was created as a Private Limited company under the Malaysian venture capital regulations to allow it to invest in new technology based start-ups and other investments that may facilitate inward attraction of technology into Malaysia. The nascent entity was initially given MYR 52mn in paid up capital to be invested in technology-based companies (TBCs).
Today, MTDC manages a MYR 1 billion non-ICT venture capital fund on behalf of the Government of Malaysia. The primary focus of this Fund is life sciences / biotechnology, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing and nanotechnology sectors. Since 2004, MTDC has invested more than half a billion Ringgit Malaysia, in high-technology companies both in Malaysia and abroad. It also manages Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund (MLSCF) established in 2006 with US$162 million in committed capital. MTDC is majority owned by Khazanah Nasional - the Malaysian Government’s Sovereign Wealth Fund that makes strategic investments in Malaysian entities.
By: Abdalla Alnajjar
SciDev.Net, published on 3 October 2007
The Muslim world need not lag behind in science and technology. Abdalla Alnajjar looks at an initiative that is charting a new approach.
Science, technology and innovation are now viewed alongside natural resources, capital and people as key ingredients for economic development and growth. Many industrialised countries and newly emerging economies — such as China, South Korea, Taiwan and India — have invested heavily in all three and reaped handsome dividends.
Unfortunately, the countries of the Middle East and the broader Muslim world have lagged behind as they continue with their pattern of wholesale im...
By: Waleed Al-Shobakky
Published in SciDev.Net on 3 October 2007
The rapid growth of technology parks in the Arab world has so far created more expectations than outcomes, reports Waleed Al-Shobakky.
Over the past few years, technology parks have been sprouting up all over the Middle East: from Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia in the north, to Kuwait, Oman and Qatar in the east.
Recognising that their natural resources, particularly oil, are being fast depleted, and looking to emulate the success stories of technology parks in Asia, Europe and North America in creating jobs and successful businesses, countries like Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have constructed as many...
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...
