Knowledge Economy

Challenges to Building a “Knowledge Society”: The Role of Literacy in Promoting Critical Thinking in the UAE – Link

Ministry of Economy Releases Emirate-specific Data on Latest Economic Achievements Ahead of UAE’s First Economic Planning Forum in Fujairah – The UAE government encourages innovation, research and development, seeking to increase the contribution of the knowledge economy to the GDP by 5% by 2021″ – Link

Education a key pillar of UAE’s growth – To successfully transform into a knowledge economy, nation must continue with investments in human capital base – Link

MBRSG, SAP Launch ‘Innovation Days’ Initiative – … Dr Bassem Yunis, Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at MBRSG, said: “Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government is honored to play the role of knowledge partner in supporting the vision of the government of Dubai that seeks to create a smarter world. To achieve this priority, MBRSG provides a shared knowledge platform for developers, innovators and decision makers.We are confident our partnerships with SAP and other major global technology leaders will help us achieve this long-term strategy for shaping a knowledge economy in the UAE and wider region.” – Link

A day or two ago I read a HBR Blog Network post entitled “What Peter Drucker Knew About 2020” by Rick Wartzman (@RWartzman) of the Drucker Institute.  I noted the following paragraph:

Drucker urged executives to push decision-making and accountability all the way down through the organization as early as 1954, when he introduced the concept of Management by Objectives. And yet there is ample evidence that most organizations remain paragons of command-and-control. In a knowledge economy, top-down direction is particularly detrimental because employees are bound to know more than their supervisors do about the specialized fields in which they operate. They may also know more about the customer—his needs and desires. “Knowledge workers have to manage themselves,” Drucker advised. “They have to have autonomy.”

Shortly thereafter I read a CNET post entitled “Google is ‘on the right side of history’ says Eric Schmidt” by Rich Trenholm (@rich_trenholm). Schmidt touches on several topics but he must have been channeling Drucker as he noted the following:

Schmidt recalls “the moment I discovered I wasn’t in a normal company.” Early in his time at Google he discussed a review of engineering performance with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. “I looked at it and said that makes sense to me, but then Larry and Sergey looked at it and said, ‘None of this is true.'” In fact, Page and Brin had been keeping an eye on what people were doing on an ongoing basis and so concluded that the company’s managers didn’t know what was going on. Their solution? Get rid of all the managers.

Known as “the disorg,” this process found the managers roles that suited them better, leaving Google with with just one manager in charge of 120 people…a number big enough so that he couldn’t wind up micromanaging each individual.

The company quickly found that with no management but a clear strategy, people would self-manage. One result was a new algorithm that fixed irrelevant ads showing up in search results — developed not by the ads team but by a few engineers figuring it out “when they had nothing to do one weekend.”

Microsoft 4Afrika – To fast-track their growth and provide a roadmap to highlight Africa’s ‘future growth pole’, Microsoft has revealed the 7 new African start-ups to receive funding, technical support and mentorship.  According to Microsoft, one of the goals of the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative is to accelerate African innovation, ensuring that entrepreneurs continue to grow their businesses and solutions. In turn, they will create jobs, encourage skills development and grow the continent’s knowledge economy. – link

UK: Forging Futures: the next step for skills – link

IT is crucial to Qatar’s knowledge economy index ranking – link

Bulgaria needs an economy of knowledge – link

Iran in the knowledge economy era – link

Saudi Arabia – Minister of Education Prince Khaled Al-Faisal announced here recently that the ministry is in the process of equipping 250,000 classrooms and teachers with Internet connectivity, computers and tablets as part of a long-term investment in developing a knowledge economy. … Mohammad Al-Suwaiyel, president of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, said the national strategy on science, technology and innovation would transform the Kingdom into a knowledge economy. The first stage of the plan is self-accountability and establishing a solid structure for development and research, he said.
Minister of Economy and Planning Mohammad Al-Jasser echoed this view and said that the changes in the education system would be accompanied by an overhaul of some economic policies, with a focus on innovation and investment in advanced technologies. – link

Iran – TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Vice-President for Women and Family Affairs Shahindokht Molaverdi underscored the necessity for paying special attention to the development of knowledge-based economy in Iran.  Change in approach towards the natural resource-based economy to the knowledge-based economy is necessary, Molaverdi said on Wednesday, addressing a three-day seminar of women affairs’ advisors in Ministry of Industries, Mines and Trade in Tehran.  link

Buffalo, NY – Citing a broader benefit, Canty noted, “It is NIH support of innovative research that is fueling a thriving knowledge economy in Western New York, an important piece of which will be the opening of University of Buffalo’s medical school …” link

University of Iowa – UI Vice President for Research and Economic Development Dan Reed [a former Microsoft exec] said public research universities are uniquely poised to take advantage of the emerging “knowledge economy.”  “If knowledge is our most important engine of production, then talent is the raw material powering that engine,” Reed said. “Universities are the nation’s primary source of knowledge creation and its top cultivator of talent.” – link

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Cabinet

20-August-2014

Digital India – A programme to transform India into digital empowered society and knowledge economy

The Cabinet today at the meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi gave its approval for Digital India – A programme to transform India into digital empowered society and knowledge economy.  This is a follow up to the key decisions taken on the design of the programme during the meeting of the Prime Minister on Digital India Programme on August 7, 2014, and to sensitize all ministries to this vast programme touching every corner of the government.  This programme has been envisaged by Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY).

The vision of Digital India aims to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.  The programme will be implemented in phases from the current year till 2018.  REST

Nick Berry is a data scientist at Facebook, and he recently spoke at Casual Connect USA 2014.  The complete GameSauce.org post can be found here with a 24 minute video of Nick’s remarks.  Most interesting was the following excerpt (emphasis added):

Being a data scientist gives Berry a unique perspective on data, and he is an advocate of data “trust,” which he feels is a better term than “data privacy.” “‘Privacy’ is the wrong word to use these days,” he explains. “We should be using the word ‘Trust.’ We are living in a knowledge economy, and the value many of us add in this industry is in the manipulation of information — not in the creation of some tangible hardware product. We take raw data (often customer data), and add value to it. We should use this data respectfully. People trust us with it. Without trust, people will not share, and data is the fuel of the knowledge economy.”

Eric Schmidt, at the New America Foundation event Globalization Goes Digital (currently being webcast at http://newamerica.net/events/2014/globalization_goes_digital), as part of his answer to a question from Thomas Friedman:

Quote: The knowledge economy has arrived.

The event was related to the recently release McKinsey Global Institute report, “Global Flows in a Digital Age: How trade, Finance, People, and Data Connect the World Economy.”

RT if you agree-“The knowledge economy has arrived”- Google CEO @ericschmidt. pic.twitter.com/tkidUIAm06

— New America (@NewAmerica) May 22, 2014

Incubators, hubs and accelerators that may have seemed peripheral to the health of the economy just five years ago, such as Communitech in Waterloo, the MaRS building in Toronto and GrowLab in Vancouver, are increasingly seen as drivers of healthy local economies looking to join the 21st century and as models that can be replicated almost anywhere.  Not to mention that the economic impact these hubs have generated makes the prospect of investment by provincial and municipal governments in their development kind of a no-brainer.  “Building on the momentum of other downtown initiatives, Council’s priorities this term included exploring a technology centre to aid in the continuing revitalization of Downtown,” said Kelowna mayor Walter Gray. “The City supports driving the knowledge economy, innovation and entrepreneurship, which in turn will create high paying sustainable jobs.”  A 2012 Deloitte report estimated Communitech Hub’s economic impact at $14 generated per $1 of public money spent. Considering that Communitech’s goal when it opened in 2009 was to attract $100 million in equity investment for the companies under its roof, and that by 2012 it had attracted $350 million, the initiative would appear to be a success. … Full article here.

From Claire Lambrecht’s SmartPlanet article “Want to invest early in the next big startup? Ask Michael Moe”

“To Moe, the key to sifting gold from garbage is identifying major trends in the economy. One megatrend that Moe is particularly enthusiastic about is the concept of the knowledge economy, an economy based on high-value knowledge workers. “Silicon Valley is probably the most hyper example of that, where the way that these companies compete is pure and simply is if they can attract the smartest talent,” he said.”  [emphasis added]