Knowledge Economy

Message from SAGIA Governor Abdullatif Al-Othman

Saudi Arabia has a stellar record of growth and transformation, offering a broad range of investment opportunities while growing and diversifying its economy. An exciting and a rewarding venture for those who want to be part of our journey.

Our vision is to be a leading investment destination that promotes a diversified knowledge based economy and drives sustainable socioeconomic growth.

Our mission is to promote, attract, and grow quality investments in untapped sectors while fostering an exceptional business environment.

We aim to leverage the Kingdom’s resources, advantages, and motivated human capital to emerge as a regional hub and a perfect place for globally leading and innovative enterprises both large and small.

By capitalizing on our skills, capabilities, and successful partnerships; we in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are confident that our promise to investors for an exceptional and a rewarding experience will be a reality.

Emiratisation a building block for economic success

There is no doubt in my mind that a country’s economic and social progress largely depends on its knowledgeable human capital, which is why in the UAE Emiratisation holds much importance. The engine for growth and sustaining it in the 21st century is a ‘knowledge economy’, also known as intellectual capital. All competitiveness and productivity is linked to it.

Countries who adopted and diversified a knowledge based economy achieved positive results in their economic development initiatives. It’s a concept that has an enormous impact in different areas of business. Most importantly, it has impacted the roles and responsibilities of the incumbent performing professional duties and progresses job refinement. …

Identification of innate abilities and raw talent at an academic level and then nurturing it is crucial in converting raw talent into a professional strength. This strength is the building block of a knowledge economy. Link

Millennials realize growing up is hard to do

“It all begins with the changes in economics,” Arnett says, referring to the shift to the knowledge economy. “People think about work differently. They aren’t just looking for a way to make a living, they’re idealistic about the kind of work they hope to find.” …

He says these expectations of a higher standard of living have existed since he began studying the emerging adult age group in the 1990s at an earlier stage in the knowledge economy, and these attitudes have not changed much since.

“This generation of emerging adults is amazingly affluent compared to others,” Arnett says. “They have expectations for consumption that people didn’t have 50 years ago or 100 years ago.” Link

SOUTH AFRICAN PRIVATE SECTOR URGED TO INVEST IN KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

CAPE TOWN, aug 25 (NNN-SA NEWS) — The South Africa economy needs to make a transition to knowledge-based growth so as to boost the country’s competitiveness in order for the economy to be diversified, says Department of Science and Technology Director-General Dr Phil Mjwara.

Speaking at the opening of the 65th International Academy for Production Engineering General Assembly (CIRP) at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Tuesday, he added that the department firmly believed that transitioning South Africa’s economy from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy would contribute to addressing the diversification of the economy. Link

Fiji – Up in the clouds

Data can change the way the globe works, linking information, objects and concepts to people and affecting their lives in real time. Knowledge is power and as such having an efficient data collection and storage system is vital to this end. Understandably there is a buzz surrounding the developing of the “O Raroa” Cloud Computing Infrastructure, at the University of the South Pacific (USP), a system that offers scalable computational framework for supporting interdisciplinary data-driven applications. The initiative by USP’s School for Computing Information and Mathematical Science is expected to take data-driven research in the region to another level. Funding for this project in the amount of FJD 100K has been secured through USP’s Strategic Research Theme on ICT and Knowledge Economy. Link    [If you folks in Fiji need me down there for consulting, I’m available]

The knowledge economy is a focus for many many governments in the developed world. A knowledge economy is one “where distinctive know-how is vital to competitive services and products”, and where knowledge is the resource from which economic value is delivered. Governments like the idea of a knowledge economy, because it delivers high value without the need for natural resources like oil, farm land, minerals or tourism.

So why do governments have such a difficult time understanding how to support the knowledge economy?

I think partly it is because they do not understand knowledge and how it drives value, they do not understand Knowledge Management (the public sector is way behind the curve in adopting KM, and most governments see it either as a synonym for library science, or an issue solvable through the use of technology alone), and they have not yet looked long and hard about how other economies are supported, in order to take those lessons and apply them to the knowledge economy.

The UK Government, for example, sees the knowledge economy as intrinsically tied to higher education. They measure the economy partly by measuring high-tech industries and university places, and support it partly by funding higher education and partly through what they call “Knowledge Transfer” but which really is the encouragement of commercialisation of University research.

However to be successful, the knowledge economy requires … Link

A Digital India could transform Indian society into a knowledge economy, said Prabir Kumar Das, director of Software Technology Parks of India, [earlier this month] while inaugurating Digital India Week here. Digital India Week was nationally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi … in New Delhi. It aims to inform, educate and engage citizens through various events at large number of digital points such as post offices, schools, gram panchayats and others about the benefits of Digital India. “The Digital India programme is a mission to prepare India for a knowledge future by making technology central to enabling change,” said Das. Link

Digital India: Airtel, Idea, Reliance Jio and Global Cloud to Invest $62.6 bn

Digital India has been envisioned as an ambitious umbrella program to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It comprises of various initiatives under the single program each targeted to prepare India for becoming a knowledge economy and for bringing good governance to citizens through synchronized and coordinated engagement of the entire government. Link

Digital India: 15 salient things to know about PM Narendra Modi’s project

NEW DELHI: Moving ahead on yet another pet project, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to launch the ‘Digital India’ campaign, aimed at creating a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

The programme comprises of various initiatives, each targeted to prepare India for becoming a knowledge economy and for bringing good governance to citizens through synchronized and co-ordinated engagement of the entire government.  Link

[Ed: we are looking for corporate sponsors for development of KnowledgeEconomy.IN]

Sumit Mazumder, President, Confederation of Indian Industry, writes this article in The Hindu

While there are signs that economic growth is reviving, the concern is that investments are not as forthcoming as expected. …

Regarding manufacturing, certain focus industries in labour-intensive and advanced sectors should be championed, including automotives, defense, and textiles. In particular, incentives for Research and Development and Information, Communication Technology and Electronics manufacturing would help reduce imports. A ‘Make in India Technology Venture’ can be set up as a special purpose vehicle under public-private partnership to invest Rs 1 lakh crore in building a knowledge economy. The Digital India vision requires simplification of procurement process and a joint government-industry task force to address challenges. Start-ups should be supported through a suitable scheme.The government has taken many positive steps for a progressive tax policy. Dispute resolution mechanisms, arbitration and conciliation can further help in efficient and time-bound clearance of funds in dispute. Link

[The goal of Digital India is to transform India into a digitally empowered knowledge economy. In this article, it is interesting to see CII President Mazumder describing “Make in India” as also building a knowledge economy.]

Building a strong reputation for converting invention into economic gain, the UK is currently ranked second in the world for innovation – a primary driver of inward investment. Every pound invested in R&D returns 20-30p annually, building a knowledge economy which supports a third of our businesses and pays 40% higher than the average wage. …

We’ve heard chancellor George Osborne refer to science as “a personal priority”and prime minster David Cameron talk about life sciences as “a jewel in the crown of our economy”, but there is still the ever-present threat of underinvestment, leaving the UK in danger of falling behind. The UK science base stems from a long history of publicly-supported research and to protect our position as a world-leading knowledge economy, a long-term plan is most certainly needed.  Link

Attending today – presented by Techonomy Media

http://techonomy.com/conf/policy/program/

Simone Ross & David Kirkpatrick is kicking the event off – talking about networks taking power from older institutions and the Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) recently held in NY; who controls technology and how the IoT is developing; Bitcoin and the Blockchain; one-way view of sharing of data and personal information; “Google” self-driving cars; tech industry needs to be in Washington, DC and listening more; D5 – UK, Israel, S Korea, Estonia, New Zealand; live streaming at Techonomy.com and #TechonomyPolicy

First panel – Steve Case, David Edelman, Vinton Cerf & David Kirkpatrick (moderator)

Steve – opportunity but no guarantee we will remain leaders of the Internet, need to double-down on entrepreneurship; David – reviewing how tech has slowly grown to get the attention of senior officials in the government, first State Dept “tech” hire, recruitment of Megan Smith, the President “gets” technology, policy focused and “We The People” platform and how online petition about un-locking cellphones lead to snowball in the press and rapid Congressional and Industry action; Vint – freedom of choice, self-fixing problem with youth, DNA meets DNS, collaboration and cooperation can avoid the competitive zero-sum game problem, Europe and Asia don’t seem to be as willing to take risks and to reward risk takers, failure as a source of education; Steve – Rise of the Rest tour getting outside of Silicon Valley, need to fix disfunction in Washington, VC funding needs to be better distributed, JOBS act, immigration problem and how we need to win the battle for talent; Vint – government as innovator, move lab results far enough along that VC will take it the rest of the way, long-term R&D; David – education tech and who will benefit from it, $10B pulled together without Congress; Vint – broadband to Internet that needs to be open, gov’ts interfering, need security

Second panel – Fadi Chedade (ICANN), Steve DelBianco (NetChoice), Miriam Sapiro (Brookings), Gordon Goldstein (Silver Lake – moderator)

Steve – community comments on Congressional action regarding the transition from US control to ICANN; Fadi – fundamental reason the US government is stepping back as other governments step back, govs only have an advisory role at ICANN Board, need to update and strengthen the ICANN bylaws so they cannot easily be changed, multi-stakeholder approach; Steve – stress-testing the accountability measures will work in the multi-stakeholder model of governance; Miriam – how did ICANN improve? through measures designed to prevent capture of the Board; Fadi – bright light – how many people were involved in the multi-stakeholder approach and how well it is working, potential problem – that things might be turned upside down by various governments, make sure everybody understands ICANN’s role

Briefing with Arun Sundararajan regarding “on demand” workers

crowd-based capitalism, Uber cars, Kiva, AirBnB, on-demand labor expanding from consumers in the corporate world, his focus is consumer protection, institutions to “communities” and how sustainable is this process? consumerization of digital, digitization of physical world, socioeconomic drivers, feedback from others as a digital signal and digitaization of trust, invisible infrastructure, blurring of lines between personal and professional worlds, sharing-economy leads to issues about possible lack of professionalism, new self-regulatory opportunities and platforms, information failures: adverse selection and moral hazard, 2 narratives of the sharing economy – empowered entrepreneurs vs the race to the bottom (hollowed out middle class?), research – providers tend to be more entrepreneurial than average person, worker cooperatives vs shareholder corporations, US social safety net assumes full-time employment with an employer

Briefing – Kitty Parry, the Social Media Charter

Financial institutions are behind but have the resources to catch up, financial regulations are the problems, we need to bring industry and regulators together to innovate better regulations, what is the framework? advocating for institutions to sign-up for social media charter as a common sense approach, support for more practical regulation, the Charter will be informed by best practices, regulators should promote greater transparency, framework is only the start, regulators moving to tighter interpretations, costing more in compliance expenses, need the new age of collaboratory compliance, archiving data,

Global Pushback Against American Tech

Erich Anderson (Microsoft), Andrea Gloriosa (EU), Yael Weinman (ITIC), and Bob Boorstin, Albright Stonebridge

Yael – what keeps tech companies up at night – data localization and uncertainty; Andrea – digital single market (DSM) document could be a little clearer – believes the US and EU are grappling with similar questions, Brussels “above my paygrade” answer, Europe is more risk adverse than the US, friction is not always bad if it enables you to stop when you want to; Erich – broad laws as frameworks for technology, DSM initiative is a good one, can help cut down on data silos, details make it complex but tech companies want to see progress, in Asia (Sue Decker article) Korean IP and anti-trust intersection, & Chinese governments – taking fresh looks at this area, each nation can pass its laws without it being protectionism if they do so thoughtfully, industry given the opportunity to provide input and to have dialogues with these countries, Bob – used to be with Google and wanted no regulation rather than US, EU, Asian, etc versions of regulations; Yael – tech neutrality is needed in quickly developing regulatory world; Andrea – EC has been respecting net neutrality – focus is on what actually gets proposed, do we need global laws and rules? would be good for global tech companies, EU and the US have many of the same problems and objectives, keep the discussion going; Erich – create technologies that meet the minimum bar, – Snowden question – issues were already bubbling and doubts the $35B loss to US tech companies figure that was published by ITIF

Jerry Brito (Coin Center) – Briefing on how the blockchain could change everything – how everything is based on ledge concepts, issues of how these ledgers interact or not, blockchain is like a shared Google spreadsheet, it an append only record so it keeps a record of what has gone before, no gatekeepers such as banks, domain name registries, just uses open source software, what can you do with a universal open ledger – managing money is the obvious first use case, next is copyright (DRM) universal ledger is basically a new Internet protocol, crowdfunding (onename), DNS, notary services, open source, permissionless

Andrew Rasiej (Personal Democracy Forum) – the 20th century’s war on the 21st centory – money vs information and it is getting worse with the IoT – jail break your car? house? DRM issues in all the software, thinks the NSA is the Federal Reserve of information, very concerned about privacy, broken democracy, too much money in politics, “information is the currency of democracy” Thomas Jefferson

Alex Hawkinson (SmartThings – acquired by Samsung) How the IoT will connect shoes, cars, doctors and power plants – 50B connected devices & 7T in market value by 2020, in homes – energy and security connections, trying to cut down on the silos and promote greater openness in these IoT

Jessica Rosenworcel @JRosenworcel & Michael O’Rielly @mikeofcc (FCC Commissioners) and Craig Mundie (Mundie & Associates) – FCC (R&D) on spectrum and the policy future for ubiquitous tech – Craig opens the discussion with review of wireless communications evolution, PCAST report on spectrum utilization, April passage of new rules; Jessica – repurposing spectrum for further usage, PCAST report was a jolt; Michael – 3.5 Gigahertz initiative, thinks the Commission may have thrown so many different things at the initiative that they cannot tell what is or is not working, marine radars and uses in the middle of the country, more ways to subdivide these things, the Navy is finding ways to co-exist and allow usage by geography, World Radio Conference every 4 years, division between commercial and government usage, federal usage is roughly 60% and clearly they are looking for a better way to transfer spectrum from gov to commercial sector, PCAST recommended a way to value government spectrum usage – synthetic currency, short-term vs long-term incentives as it relates to the carrot and stick model of encouraging government transfers of spectrum, licensed and unlicensed differences – unlicensed was a small, experimental chuck of spectrum 30 years ago, special case in cellular operators shifting data to the wifi network and their hybrid solutions, the influence of software in the networks will be dramatic and will impact usage when a user is not fully using licensed spectrum, purchase rights in real-time access system – starting this experiment in the 3.5GH band, if you are not using your priority access then someone else can use it until you are ready to reclaim your priority rights, spectrum is a limited resource, JMOS just a matter of software, 7 in 10 teachers assign homework that requires Internet access,

Philip Zelikow @marklefdn (Markle Foundation & UVA) – The digital revolution and America’s economic future – is the iPhone and import or export? is it a sale of a good or a service? CEO group called Rework America, economic revolution of a new kind – decentralized, pushes things out to the users, Starbucks & ASU deal, don’t think about robots taking jobs – imagine the new jobs that will use the robots, we are entering a “no collar” world, the credential system is no longer transparent enough, America’s Moment

Why everybody cares about the blockchain

Jerry Brito (Coin Center), Jinyoung Lee England (Digital Currency Council), Brian Forde (MIT Media Lab), Brad Burnham (Union Square Ventures), and Paul Vigna (Wall Street Journal – moderator)

Brian – impacted by the Chinese hack of the Federal employee data, better phishing attacks, we could authenticate ourselves to the blockchain (Joel analyst at Union Square Ventures good article), SSA could authenticate us to the blockchain; Jinyoung – decentralized and distributed information is less hackable, open; Brad – public data controlled by a key; Jinyoung – criminals think bitcoin and the blockchain are anonymous but this is not the case, law enforcement can literally follow the money on the public ledgers; Jerry – company Onename (lookup) says that the blockchain will always be there; Brian – rubber-stamp authentication protocol – he was in Federal gov for 3+ years, ink based stamps, authentication theater based on thousands of years, need a cultural change, need technologists to be working with the politicians but pols are scared but tech fails, his MIT lab is beta testing these new systems to make them safer and more acceptable; Brian – context in the US we don’t quite understand but in Iraq where they don’t have ATM’s on every corner they got it much quicker, if the government is in crisis you can see the people being much more willing to adopt and use technologies, M-Pensa in Kenya; Brad – invested in Mine, Coinbase, etc; Jerrry – bitcoin is regulated, NY bit license recently published, Coinbase and Circle will survive but it will be burdensome, worries about the start-up that cannot afford to get licensed in every state, bit license has a money laundering requirement at the state level; Brad – regulators try to avoid all risk, regulate entry into the market, keeps the start-up world out of the bitcoin platform, thinks the NY bit license is an overstep; Jerry – we have had private currencies for many years, airline miles, etc; Brad – Mine uses machine learning techniques to re-associate identity information related to copyrights, etc; Jerry – the blockchain could go way but in the way that the web could go away, their hopefully are sufficient incentives to keep things going; Brian – increasing the block size from 1MB to 20MB and have a large increase in transactions; Jerry – 5 people have the keys to change the code at GitHub.

Privacy collides with data in a transparent world

Julie Brill, Federal Trade Commission, Brad Burnham, Union Square Ventures, Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft, Robert Quinn, AT&T Services, and David Callaway, (USA Today – moderator)

Brad – 2-3,ooo years to understand physical property, decades with intellectual property and just scratching the surface with data; Julie – is privacy a fundamental right or just a consumer issue, lots of issues where we and Europe are working towards the same goals, data brokers, figure out how you are using your data, don’t be an ostrich, consumers attention is a resource; Bob – privacy and security are not the same thing, security is 24/7; Horacio – litigation with US regarding warrant seeking data concerning an Irish citizen; Julie – extra-territoriality, FTC can protect US and European citizens, safe-harbor for data flow; David – quotes John Chambers saying that data breaches will get much worse

Briefing: Why drones are dive-bombing the FAA – Lisa Ellman (McKenna, Long & Aldridge) – Drone demonstration, uses for agriculture, package delivery, power line inspections, medicines to rural areas, internationally several countries are ahead of the US in using drones for commercial purposes, in Japan most crop-dusting is done by drones, FAA is working hard on the regulations, February they put out a notice of proposed rule making, Section 333 petition for exemption, 500+ petitions approved so far, platform neutral rules and Presidential Memorandum on usage, policy makers and innovators should be working together, geo-fencing to keep drones out of places where they shouldn’t go, Chris Anderson left Wired to start a drone company

Briefing: Doing business in DC – Don Baptist & Tony Costello (Bloomberg Government) – Washington is changing, cyclical, information isn’t what it used to be, Bloomberg Government study regarding 10K reports of 60 companies, the government risk factor section increased dramatically between 2005 and 2012; improving government affairs metrics, quantification of interactions with governments, more data driven, leverage technology to analyze data, Washington office government affairs can significantly impact business results, disproportionate results for lobbing expenditures

Europe’s Digital Mission – David O’Sullivan (European Union to the USA) and David Kirkpatrick (Techonomy Media) – David says the digital pervades almost everything, tech is huge driver of change, argues that EU and US wrestling with same issues, goal of EU to create the Digital Single Market (DSM), EC is responsible for proposing and implementing legislation, required regulatory breaking down of borders, purpose is to liberate the digital economy across Europe, so much depends on data flows, could have impacts on the US and the rest of the world, 28 countries coming together in the DSM, 5-10 year project for the 16 actions listed in the most recent DSM document, much will happen in the next 5 years, nuances in regulation, minority of protectionist agenda people, attempt of French government to build a French “Google” that failed, not upset that US companies are leading tech in Europe, says they fine many more companies in Europe than in the US, there is not the VC to enable EU companies to grow to greater scale, too many EU companies sell-out to US companies, very private and not wanting to talk about data breaches like happens here in the US

Militarization of the Internet: Expanding the boundaries of cyberwar

Shane Harris (Daily Beast), Alan Marcus (World Economic Forum), Michael Cote (Dell SecureWorks), Craig Mundie (Mundie & Associates), and Cory Bennett (The Hill – moderator)

Craig – lots of energy is expended at the Federal level to figure out attribution of cyber attacks, what is a war? aggressive movement that is not espionage; Alan – Saudi Aramco was taken off line by a cyber attack; Craig – questions about what we should do in response to a cyber attack; Cory – is a Chinese hacker being directed by the Chinese government? the North Korea attack against Sony, nation state responsibility for actors in that country; Craig – China and US economies are so intertwined that it severs as a deterrent, problem of a viable asymmetric attack; Alan – not clear what agencies are looking at what aspects of the various problems, 4 years ago it took representatives of 18 agencies, today it would be fewer but still not down to 1; Craig – continuity between military (DOD), homeland security and police, some countries do better because they don’t hamstring themselves the way we do, need a new way of organizing cyber responses; Alan – mission of blue navy keeping ships safe, if cyberspace is a trade route then shouldn’t the military be keeping it safe? Shane – FBI dealing with criminal agencies from international sources, made a deal with NSA to create an operational team, more creative thinking; Craig – state vs non-state actors and then criminal groups, software was built not thinking that there would be outside attacks, we are developing a different and more hybridized architecture to address cyber security issues; Alan – change in CEO thinking about cyber security after Target attack; Shane – great distrust of government after Snowden disclosures; Alan – business leaders understand they are under greater and greater pressure of attacks of various types; Michael – such a massive problem that the government is telling companies they have been hacked but there is little else they can do because there are so many hacks

Parting Shots – Kate Jackson @McKinsey and Rik Kirkland @rikthekirk (McKinsey & Company)

Rik – noted how PDF talked about Panopticon dystopia and SmartThings guy showed family friendly video, drones being better used in other countries, blockchain usage will be huge, need to spur continued innovation and better utilize spectrum, Kitty’s example of the UK social media charter, make policy makers and innovators sit at the same table, create more freedom of choice

Technology, Innovation and American Progress

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE), Sean Parker (Economic Innovation Group (EIG) & Brigade), and David Kirkpatrick (Techonomy Media – moderator)

Both Senators – very complimentary of each other and suggesting how much they are working together with respect to technology; Sean – very bipartisan donations, 3 year process to catalyze a few novel ideas through EIG, doesn’t agree with people he supports on every issue but that is true whether they are in politics or not; Sen Fischer – invited trucking folks from Nebraska who had great conversations with Sen Booker, listening and exchanging information, came to DC to find solutions, not hold press conferences, didn’t worry about the gridlock, just came to work rather than fight; Sean – going into 2010 there was the dysfunctional view that wanted to burn DC down, today he sees the Senate as more ready to make things happen, companies he is creating that aim to use tech to improve government, tech leads in society and government needs to catch up, moving into life and bio sciences; Sen Booker – again complimenting Sen Fischer because she focuses on delivering solutions, we are in danger of losing our dominance in global commerce to China and others, problems with FAA not implementing regulations fast enough to allow innovation to flourish in this country, we need a bi-partisan technology council that deals with immigration, patent trolls, etc that chokes innovation, comes from city hall, Senate cannot grab best minds like an Internet company; Sean – national technology agenda? precedents in prior generations, building economic growth, EIG got started regarding the uneven economic recovery, build up manufacturing capacity, capitalization issues and robots as a tool of automation, trying to keep us as the world leader in bio research, we need to just not screw it up, EIG created to get capital to flow to distressed regions such as Detroit; Sen Booker – we lead the race to the moon but we may not be winning the race to cure cancer, could that happen in Europe or China? we need a national sense of urgency; Sean – if we don’t fix the FDA we will have to get drugs from China, problems with the patent office, China drone company example, Brigade is rolling out about 7 tools to help people organize online; Sen Booker – patent office problems; Sean – maybe we need a different type of patent for software; Sen Booker – question about getting social security and similar funds to the poor with greater efficiency, safety, technological security, etc, immigration may be the issue with the greatest need to be solved, need for much greater approach to apprenticeships