Knowledge Economy

Abu Dhabi: Sandooq Al Watan, a national initiative launched by prominent Emirati businessmen to support research projects for the post-oil era, has received a new Dh10 million contribution from the Bin Hamoodah Group, bringing its total amount raised since its inception to Dh558 million. …

“Our responsibility towards society compels us to support Sandooq Al Watan, and to play our part in creating a sustainable knowledge economy for future generations,” said Bin Hamoodah Group Chairman Faraj Ali Bin Hamoodah. “We support the fund’s efforts to stimulate creativity and innovation, and to drive development and economic diversification. Sandooq Al Watan plays a positive role in society as it works to develop the skills of an entire generation of future leaders. This resonates with our strategy to invest in national talent to serve the UAE’s development ambitions.” …

The initiative is aligned with the UAE leadership’s directives — particularly, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces — to set plans for a sustainable knowledge economy in the post-oil era.  Full article

REID HOFFMAN: I want to acknowledge that most companies don’t have the option of hiring rocket scientists, Olympic athletes and Super Bowl winners. But Eric does have more pragmatic advice for companies that can’t set the bar at Himalayan heights.

ERIC SCHMIDT: So today I would suggest that—and this has since been confirmed by many studies—that persistence is the single biggest predictor of future success. And so we would look for persistence. And the second thing was curiosity. What do you care about? The combination of persistence and curiosity is a very good predictor of employee success in a knowledge economy.

full Masters of Scale transcript

Remarks by Prime Minister Modi of India in Joint Press Statement with President Trump

I am very clear about the fact that India’s interests lie in a strong, and prosperous, and successful America.  In the same way, India’s development and its growing role at the international level are in the USA’s interest.

One of our common priorities will be the development of trade, commerce, and investment links.  And in this regard, in the technology, innovation, and knowledge-economy sectors, the expansion and deepening of cooperation is also among our priorities.  Towards this end, we shall take steps to further strengthen our successful digital partnership. Full Remarks

Commissioner Moedas: “Research & Innovation – Shaping Our Future”

As policy makers, we must also step outside of our comfort zones. For example, I very much welcome the fact that the Lamy group included education in their report and proposed some new ideas. Such as including more training activities in collaborative research projects. Or introducing incentives for university reforms. And capitalising on the education and training activities of the EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities.

I also fully agree with the need to break down the silos between the Framework Programme and Structural Funds. This is very important to really integrate the EU13 Member States in the global knowledge economy.  Rest

 Cristina Garmendia, Chair, Fundación Codec and member of the HLG #Innov4Impact – speaking about the first recommendation of the HLG report on maximising the impact of future EU R&I programmes.

Inspire the young vote with an upbeat vision of Brexit

Paul Marshall is chairman of Marshall Wace (a hedge fund in London) and co-chaired the Prosperity UK conference. He writes in a personal capacity. The following is an excerpt from his June 12th opinion piece in the Financial Times.

The message must be crafted for the young, for it is they who will inherit this economy and it is they who are being taken in by Mr Corbyn’s blandishments. A core component must be a more generous vision of immigration, which recognises the limits to the absorption capacity of some communities but equally recognises the vital importance of skilled workers and the place of our universities at the heart of any knowledge economy. Students must be taken out of the immigration numbers. And our universities must be brought together to help set a national strategy for the knowledge economy.  Rest

UAE prepares for post-oil era

“Our Future initiative is a foundation upon which we can create a knowledge economy by supporting innovative ideas and start-ups that propose solutions to the challenges of the future and growing them into a global phenomenon,” said Mohamed Tajeddine Al Qadhi, Director-General of Sandooq Al Watan.

“The initiative is unique because it supports the projects from inception – all the way to growing the company into a local and global leader.”

The initiative is aligned with the UAE leadership’s directives, particularly His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to set plans for a sustainable knowledge economy in the post-oil era.  Rest

Ideas and ivory towers

The knowledge economy demands seamless interaction between government, academia, industry

A former professor of robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology has helped create a robotic tailor that can stitch a perfect circle: If you can stitch a perfect circle, then you can perform almost any complicated sewing task that, in the past, could only have been undertaken by skilled and experienced hands. The only seemingly viable option for the garments industry in the Asian region is to seek to import such machines. There goes a part of our plan to keep unemployment figures down.

There are many lessons that need to be imbibed by us in India from this troubling future of the garments industry. These lessons transcend the garments industry and need to be brought to the attention of educationists, policymakers and several arms of the government. The success of this robotic stitching device provides us with a near-perfect example of the power of a knowledge-based economy.  Rest

Nicola Sturgeon: Scotland and the devolved governments must have their say before any more Brexit negotiations

Our natural resources, our long-standing reputation for innovation and our educated workforce give Scotland a head-start. The European Single Market, already the world’s biggest, represents a massive opportunity for these areas of Scottish strength – in the digital economy, the services sector, energy, retail, the green and knowledge economy.  Rest

So much of the economic action these days is in the knowledge economy, rather than in products that move across the border in tractor­trailers.

The majority of the value of the Standard and Poor’s 500 is now tied up in intangible things – intellectual property, data, brands and the like. Many of the largest and fastest- growing companies – public and private – are in areas such as social media (Facebook, Twitter and Snap), cloud computing (Amazon and Microsoft), online streaming and content (Netflix, Google, Apple and Spotify), e­commerce (Amazon and eBay), ride sharing (Uber) and online payments (PayPal).  Rest

The UK should promote its knowledge economy in signing free trade deals after Brexit, says Shenoa Simpson, a KPMG trade expert.

… The UK has a completely blank canvas, but what will it paint upon it? For me, the direction of travel is clear. The UK’s competitive advantage now lies in the knowledge economy. Areas like  media and the creative arts; research and innovation in industries from pharma to aerospace; the shape-shifting innovation of our financial services and the fintech sector. In carving out trade policy to govern these less tangible – but extremely precious – resources, the UK could become something of a pioneer.  Rest

[Editorial comment – Brexit inevitably is driving a wedge between the UK and Europe, but a stronger “Knowledge Economy” partnership between the UK and Europe can help counteract this effect. KnowledgeEconomy.UK, KnowledgeEconomy.EU, KnowledgeEconomy.FR, KnowledgeEconomy.DE, KnowledgeEconomy.NL, KnowledgeEconomy.ES, KnowledgeEconomy.IT, etc can be used to strengthen the partnership! Contact us at Info@ (this domain) for more information about the companies, universities, government ministries, etc that we are looking to be leaders in the development and use of these KnowledgeEconomy domains]

Greater precision in finding the target comes only with better knowledge, or, more specifically, data. In our increasingly digitised knowledge economy, we are generating, capturing and analysing data at volumes and speeds that are accelerating exponentially.

Through access to high-quality data, artificial intelligence (AI) programmes can ensure messages to and communications with customers hit the correct target time after time. The more an AI programme knows about a client’s preferences and priorities, the better it can meet and even anticipate future needs.  Rest

@Richard_Florida, May 30, 2017 – Traditionally, it was thought that people follow jobs. We move for money, right? Accordingly, cities shelled out big incentive packages in order to lure companies and factories. But with the rise of the knowledge economy, the opposite notion has gained sway: Highly skilled and talented people—the knowledge and professional workers, artists, musicians, and media workers that comprise the creative class—have the ability to pick where they want to live and then create and attract companies.  Rest

On 19 May 2017, Hassan Rouhani was elected President of Iran for a second four-year term. Among the challenges he will face: the pursuit of transition to a knowledge economy in a context of low foreign direct investment (FDI). …

Vision 2025 foresaw an investment of US$ 3.7 trillion by 2025 to finance the transition to a knowledge economy. It was intended for one-third of this amount to come from abroad but, so far, FDI has remained elusive. It has contributed less than 1% of GDP since 2006 and just 0.5% of GDP in 2014.  Rest