Friday 26 / April / 2024
While exploring the potential for the creation of a technology hub akin to Silicon Valley in the Arab region lately across my social media platforms, I was pleased to witness the level of interest from a cross-section of readers. Their feedback was truly encouraging, and further boosted my confidence in the capabilities we Arabs hold to expand the technology sector in our region.
Before we move on to discuss the merits of hosting such a technology hub in the Arab world, we need to examine the works of some brilliant Arab minds, whose accomplishments, without doubt, contributed significantly towards the advancement of science on a global scale. Some outstanding examples include Al Hasan ibn Al Haytham’s work in optics, Ibn Khaldun’s sociology theories and Ibn Al Nafis’s discovery of the human circulatory system.
While I take immense pride in the accomplishments of our forefathers, I do find it rather alarming that there are not many recognisable Arab names in the modern technological space. A possible reason for this gap could well be that the opportunities in this space are limited in our part of the world. However, each of us must take the onus of changing this reality, if we are to achieve our bright technological future.
Despite the special focus our region places on foreign direct investment, it requires more than the physical establishment of a strong consortium of international tech-industry leaders here or merely deploying modern technology in the public and private sector to drive this change.
The benefit of having these companies in our countries is to stay up-to-date with latest technologies and explore their applications to understand how they can best add value to our socio-economic development.
We need to understand however, that the essence of technological production is knowledge, and that knowledge is not readily available to us through simply utilising imported devices or machines.
In order to pave the way for a complete technological ecosystem, we should move away from the idea of ready-made technologies and consider producing the technology we need through shaping homegrown talent.
A participatory approach and growing investment by both public and private sectors in technological production and education are the essential to fast-track the development of such an ecosystem.
Investing in knowledge assets no doubt, requires a local base for scientific research and development.
To establish this base, we need to employ international expertise. Indeed, a majority of the world’s nations that embraced technologies and excelled in certain fields began their journey by recruiting experts from abroad to lead the science, research and development movement. Regardless of the cost of this knowledge investment, I am confident that the outcomes will be beneficial and sustainable in the long run.
Currently, a fraction of knowledge assets has become available globally.
Barring some theories and equations related to security concerns and industrial technologies held by countries to preserve their interests, knowledge assets are becoming more easily accessible with time. However, we do not often see sufficient demand from the private and public sectors to import and localise such knowledge. Part of the blame for this lapse must be placed on the research and development required to turn such knowledge assets into functioning products.
What we need is an integrated plan to stimulate investment in knowledge assets. Such a plan should ideally be driven by academic institutions with a focus on scientific development that is led by technology ownership. In addition to ensuring a scientific temperament at our university campuses, such a plan will set us on the right path to transform the national science ecosystem in our countries to one centered around innovation.
Through building advanced scientific research centers, we can attract talents from all over the world to lead a powerful research movement that would ultimately help our region establish its presence in the global technology landscape.
In order to drive this movement we need to ensure that locally developed knowledge assets will be prioritised over their imported counterparts. Furthermore, enabling legislations that stimulate investment in knowledge assets could go a long way in creating the required scientific environment.
These include protection of ownership and patents, ensuring the existence of technological incubators to implement creative ideas, strengthening laws to protect national products in the domestic market and, most importantly, putting our confidence in national minds and talents to come up with a competitive national product that can fill at least part of the local demand for technological applications.
Arabs have a long and rich history of making groundbreaking contributions in myriad fields.
Taking a leaf from this history will not only allow us to recall the glories of the past but serve as a beacon of hope for a more productive and prosperous future as well.
