“Aside from Israel, the MENA region doesn’t hold any significant R&D leadership positions. Even in oil and gas, most of the intellectual property that Gulf entities own was developed abroad. That needs to change; we need to develop a capacity to solve our existential challenges — water, climate and energy — for ourselves and then export out solutions to others that also need them…There are tons of areas we should be focused on, including water purification, sustainable farming and building cooling. These are all areas where we have domestic use cases for innovative solutions.”
-Ali Al-Salim, a Gulf-based investor, adviser and co-founder of Arkan Partners, in comments to Al Monitor about how research and development could hold the key to an economic reset. [Al Monitor]
