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: David Dickson and Bothina OsamaOne year after Egypt’s revolution, enthusiasm and prospects for science are high — but still need translation into a fully functioning system.
It is difficult to believe, given the optimism and vitality of current debates about science in Egypt, that less than two years ago a UNESCO report described science in the Arab world as being in a “vegetative state”. [1]
This week Egypt celebrates the first anniversary of the momentous events in Tahrir Square, and elsewhere, that brought down the autocratic regime of President Hosni Mubarak. These events showed both the promises and the challenges in achieving economic prosperity and social development.
The promises lie in the fervour for democratic control that continues to sweep the country, combined with growing public enthusiasm for science. They point to a widely-held desire to modernise Egypt’s social and economic institutions in ways that directly address the needs of its people.
But turning fervour into an achievable political programme — one that ensures the achievements of last year’s revolution are permanent — remains a major challenge. This is as true for the institutional reforms needed to genuinely transform the country’s science infrastructure, as it is of the broader changes demanded of the newly-elected Egyptian Parliament.
Popular and government support
Certainly there is no lack of public support for reform, on either front. Indeed, a marked increase in public enthusiasm for science over the past year has been a significant, if little remarked, element of the country’s cultural transformation.
By: Mićo Tatalović
Published on 25 January 2012
Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan of Jordan talks to SciDev.Net about hopes for science in the Middle East, science diplomacy and the role of women scientists.
Members of royal families around the world often express support for science, but Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan of Jordan stands out for taking a particularly close and active interest.
She is a founder and president of the El Hassan Science City, president of Jordan’s Royal Scientific Society and chair of the board of trustees of the Princess Sumaya University for Technology. She has also recently helped set up a science and technology collaborat...
By: Amran Muhammad and Natalie Day
With all the extraordinary hype about phone hacking in the UK, you could be forgiven for missing the recent visit of the Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Tun Razak to the UK. Najib met with the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, the Queen as well as captains of industry. His message: consider Malaysia as the place to do high-value, high-tech knowledge-based innovation. This might seem a fairly common theme amongst leaders of developing countries trying to shift their economies from a traditional manufacturing focus to a knowledge-based economy, but this ambition in Malaysia has deep roots and is one which warrants greater attention.
T...
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: Athar Osama
Published on SciDev.Net on 12 January 2012
Some Muslim countries’ powerful financial incentives to make quick progress in research could backfire, cautions Athar Osama.
Over a decade ago, several governments in the Islamic world woke up from decades of slumber to begin investing heavily in science and innovation. A funding boost helped set up new universities, enhance research grants, and send thousands of students to do PhDs in the developed world.
The regulators and ministries that rolled out these ambitious efforts cautioned against judging their effectiveness and viability too soon, pointing to the limited scientific capacity in...
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...
