Haytham Abduljawad

Knowledge to Power a Nation Haytham Abduljawad

Knowledge to Power a Nation highlights the crucial roles of universities, industry, and government in stimulating innovation through policy-definition, business activities, and knowledge creation and exchange to drive the efforts to transform hydrocarbon-based economies into knowledge-based ones. The success of any strategy in this transformation effort is predicated on well-developed human capital. Such approaches are prone to be more effective when moderated by the development of social and professional networks and the protection of intellectual property generated from UIG collaborations. However, most importantly, the success of KBE transformation efforts begins with genuine reform of primary and secondary education systems in the GCC region. In a highly dynamic, knowledge-based economy, the capacity to learn is more essential than the level of knowledge itself. Entrepreneurship and education must be inescapably entwined in the GCC's regional innovation agenda. Education systems in the GCC region must focus their approach to equip students to be adaptable to lifelong learning and retraining and educated to use critical/analytical thinking skills to solve complex problems that arise in rapidly shifting knowledge marketplaces.