Canada and Chile commit to strengthening the global knowledge economy Link
Tata, Temasek, and Ramot – India’s Tata Group and Singapore-based investment company Temasek have become the lead investors in a $23M fund to invest in “knowledge economy” innovations coming out of Ramot, the Tel Aviv University tech transfer company. Ramot PR
States spending more on HE – In a time of frantic calls to raise the number of Americans with university degrees who will be needed to feed the globally competitive knowledge economy, only two states – North Dakota and Alaska – have increased spending per student on higher education, when adjusted for inflation, since the economic downturn, according to the independent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Link
India – “India is at a ‘digital payments sweet spot’ because of a series of initiatives and enablers both at the government level and in the competitive private space,” said Christophe Vergne, leader of the Global Cards and Payments Center of Excellence at consulting firm, Capgemini. … “Meanwhile, India’s government is turning out to be a big enabler of digital payments; its Digital India program [to transform India into a knowledge economy] envisages a smartphone in the hand of every Indian by 2019.” Link
Partnering with Digital India – posted by US Assistant Secretary of State Charles Rivkin – Link
US promotes entrepreneurship to counter extremism Link
Saudi Arabia Advanced Research Alliance (Saara) – As its first action, Saara has established Technovia, a new venture dedicated to maintaining a systematic, staged process to build a pipeline of commercialisation opportunities in Saudi Arabia. … Dr Jean-Lou Chameau, president, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology [KAUST], said: “Technovia will help accelerate KAUST’s economic and technology development impact on Saudi Arabia’s key national strategic priorities. This collaboration will become a platform for all research universities in the kingdom and offer Saudi-based and global companies opportunities to impact the knowledge economy within the nation.” Link
Qatar Focuses its Research – Qatar’s long-term research aim is to transform the country’s hydrocarbon-driven economy into a knowledge-based economy—a term that was hotly debated at the Qatar Foundation research conference, held on November 18 and 19. “We need to decide what we mean by a knowledge-based economy,” said Darwish Al Emadi, head of the Social and Economic Research Institute at Qatar University. “Do we want to continue being knowledge consumers who buy knowledge because [we] can afford it or do we want to be part of knowledge creation as well? Focus on research is very important as part of this knowledge-creation process,” he added. Link
Australia – Growth in the Victorian and Australian economies now depends on the growth in “knowledge economy” jobs. These jobs at the creative, productive, innovative edge of our economy are now firmly enmeshed in the dense centres of our cities. As the US urban economists Ed Glaeser and Richard Florida have shown, the knowledge economy depends on close interactions between creative people and those who can deliver projects. This work requires intensive spaces in cities, which in turn need intensive modes of transport to enable them. This means that rail, cycling and walking are critical to the knowledge economy. Although heavily into digital communications, knowledge economy workers need face-to-face contact and are now shifting back into central and inner city locations to optimise this process. In contrast, cars and trucks are dispersive modes of transport, and are needed for the consumption economy. These jobs are important too, but are essentially based in the dispersed spaces of the suburbs. These jobs are not the ones we are seeking as much as those in the knowledge economy, because they do not drive productivity growth as effectively. Link
US Sen. Martin Heinrich’s Microlab Technology Commercialization Act of 2014 article Link
Note the date November 24th, 2014 – in the future of mankind in space it is going to be worth remembering. This is the date that the first 3D component was printed in space. Given the difficulties of making things in space through any other means, I suspect that much of our future existence in space or on Mars or any other alien world will depend on “things” being “printed” – as we move to the molecular level with this technology it will look like things are just made to appear in thin air (or in vacuum chambers more likely).
NASA completes first successful in-space 3D-printing project