JEDDAH: Much of the eighth plenary session - Science and Technology - at the Jeddah Economic Forum on Tuesday consisted of a review of the Kingdom's current position in technological development and a presentation of the big-picture view of where Saudi Arabia should be in 2020. Adaptive and innovative research and development, global cooperation and cross pollination of ideas together with the difficult issue of ownership of intellectual property all surfaced in the presentations and ensuing discussions.
Prince Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed Al-Saud, vice president for research institutes at KACST (King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology) reviewed the development of policy that led to the current structure of the university. He said that the structure to establish the development of science, technology and innovation in the Kingdom would be complete this year. In a second plan, the Kingdom would become a leading country in the region. These two plans would, he continued, be completed by 2015.
"The third plan is for the country to become a leading country in science, technology and innovation in Asia and by the end of the fourth plan, the country will be transformed into a knowledge-based economy and society joining the advanced industrialized countries." He said that by 2025 the Kingdom should be, as far as the plan is concerned, an advanced and industrialized country with funding at that stage of a minimum two percent of it GDP (gross domestic product). "So far we are actually implementing this plan exactly as hoped." Of the eight programs within the plan, the long-term plans the first, strategic technologies program, gets about two thirds of the funding.
The areas of technology in this program include development of water, oil and gas, petrochemicals, nano and bio-technology, environment and electronics and communication.
"The funding for the plan is about SR8 billion ($2.2 billion) which started in 2007 and in the next five years we are looking to double that funding." Since the establishment of KACST in 1977, it has spent about $200 million on funding research at universities. "In 2009 alone, we spent about $400 million, twice what was spent during the previous 30 years." In his presentation directed at presenting the benefits of telecoms in the development of a country, Sami Al-Basheer El-Morshid, director if the Telecommunication Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union said that no nation on earth developed in any economic sector without first without developing ICT infrastructure. "You cannot have a sound educational system without ICT services, nor health or agriculture." He was convinced that the future was broadband technology. "It is the key for any sound development and the digital economy," he said.
Experience from around the world had shown that this could not happen using only the private sector. It needed a sound government involvement, he said, citing South Korea as an example.
The centerpiece in the Kingdom's drive toward the vision of a knowledge-based technological society is the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The two-part mission, described by the founding president, professor Choon Fong Shih was to recruit the top talent from around the world to pursue graduate degrees. It was, he said, a people project, "to create an environment to pursue their passion, their research and to work together at peace." The second part was to catalyze the diversification of the Saudi economy through innovation to become entrepreneurial spirits and to transform knowledge based products into commercial businesses. It was the ownership of research results that exercised the minds of several delegates. Choon admitted that a challenge was to find a way to share intellectual property rights balancing the ownership by the researchers and the university against commercial potential, but it was a difficult issue. Prince Turki agreed and said that the exploitation of intellectual property had helped many universities to establish commercial companies and develop products.
The incubation of companies that drive from research projects was, he thought, vital. "It is very important to allow researchers to benefit from their research and establish companies". He noted that KACST had been involved in developing this and anticipated a law to clarify the process in due course.
Arab News
