Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Intellectual Wealth of Nations

In modern economies, land and manufacturing continue to be significant sources of wealth of nations. However, the developed world, with icons like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, is in the midst of a major transformation to accumulation of wealth in the form of intellectual property. In this evolving new economy, there is much greater emphasis on intangible knowledge assets than on physical or tangible assets. The value of the intellectual assets determines the clout and competitiveness of the nations. Wealth generation through creation, production, distribution and consumption of knowledge and knowledge based products are the key characteristics of knowledge economy. The major growth industries such as computer software, micro-electronics, nanotechnology, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and telecommunications industries derive their strength from the power of the human intellect. These knowledge based industries stimulate other industries in turn to become knowledge based. Until recently capital was a scarce commodity. With rapid globalization and better access to international finance, capital is much less scarce. It is the intellectual assets that are knowledge based, non-replicable, unique and proprietary which are increasingly becoming scarce. Recognizing the importance of such assets, the western nations led by the United States are aggressively pushing for creation and enforcement of laws protecting intellectual property in all parts of the world.

While developing an industrial base is still necessary to build a large middle class and support the growth of intellectual capital, it is absolutely not sufficient. Clearly, the emerging economies, including China, India and Pakistan, require significant investments and efforts to develop human capital to catch up with the industrialized world in this new age of knowledge-based economy. They must start with sharper focus on basic human development through higher investments in nutrition, health and education. At the same, it is extremely important for the governments to pay greater attention to improving higher education and basic research.

Here is an interesting Op-Ed column by David Brooks in today's New York Times titled "The Protocol Economy" that amplifies on this topic:

In the 19th and 20th centuries we made stuff: corn and steel and trucks. Now, we make protocols: sets of instructions. A software program is a protocol for organizing information. A new drug is a protocol for organizing chemicals. Wal-Mart produces protocols for moving and marketing consumer goods. Even when you are buying a car, you are mostly paying for the knowledge embedded in its design, not the metal and glass.

A protocol economy has very different properties than a physical stuff economy. For example, you and I can’t use the same piece of metal at the same time. But you and I can use the same software program at the same time. Physical stuff is subject to the laws of scarcity: you can use up your timber. But it’s hard to use up a good idea. Prices for material goods tend toward equilibrium, depending on supply and demand. Equilibrium doesn’t really apply to the market for new ideas.

Over the past decades, many economists have sought to define the differences between the physical goods economy and the modern protocol economy. In 2000, Larry Summers, then the Treasury secretary, gave a speech called “The New Wealth of Nations,” laying out some principles. Leading work has been done by Douglass North of Washington University, Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago, Joel Mokyr of Northwestern and Paul Romer of Stanford.

Their research is the subject of an important new book called “From Poverty to Prosperity,” by Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz.

Kling and Schulz start off entertainingly by describing a food court. There are protocols everywhere, not only for how to make the food, but how to greet the customers, how to share common equipment like trays and tables, how to settle disputes between the stalls and enforce contracts with the management.

The success of an economy depends on its ability to invent and embrace new protocols. Kling and Schulz use North’s phrase “adaptive efficiency,” but they are really talking about how quickly a society can be infected by new ideas.

Protocols are intangible, so the traits needed to invent and absorb them are intangible, too. First, a nation has to have a good operating system: laws, regulations and property rights.

For example, if you are making steel, it costs a medium amount to make your first piece of steel and then a significant amount for each additional piece. If, on the other hand, you are making a new drug, it costs an incredible amount to invent your first pill. But then it’s nearly free to copy it millions of times. You’re only going to invest the money to make that first pill if you can have a temporary monopoly to sell the copies. So a nation has to find a way to protect intellectual property while still encouraging the flow of ideas.

Second, a nation has to have a good economic culture. “From Poverty to Prosperity” includes interviews with major economists, and it is striking how they are moving away from mathematical modeling and toward fields like sociology and anthropology.

What really matters, Edmund S. Phelps of Columbia argues, is economic culture — attitudes toward uncertainty, the willingness to exert leadership, the willingness to follow orders. A strong economy needs daring consumers (Phelps says China lacks this) and young researchers with money to play with (Romer notes that N.I.H. grants used to go to 35-year-olds but now they go to 50-year-olds).

A protocol economy tends toward inequality because some societies and subcultures have norms, attitudes and customs that increase the velocity of new recipes while other subcultures retard it. Some nations are blessed with self-reliant families, social trust and fairly enforced regulations, while others are cursed by distrust, corruption and fatalistic attitudes about the future. It is very hard to transfer the protocols of one culture onto those of another.

It’s exciting to see so many Nobel laureates taking this consilient approach. North, the leader of the field, doesn’t even think his work is economics, just unified social science.

But they are still economists, with worldviews that are still excessively individualistic and rationalistic. Kling and Schulz do not do a good job of explaining how innovation emerges. They list some banal character traits — charisma, passion — that entrepreneurs supposedly possess. To get a complete view of where the debate is headed, I’d read “From Poverty to Prosperity,” and then I’d read Richard Ogle’s 2007 book, “Smart World,” one of the most underappreciated books of the decade. Ogle applies the theory of networks and the philosophy of the extended mind (you have to read it) to show how real world innovation emerges from social clusters.

Economic change is fomenting intellectual change. When the economy was about stuff, economics resembled physics. When it’s about ideas, economics comes to resemble psychology.


Related Links:

Pakistan's Higher Education Reform

India's Innovation Envy

Pakistani Scientists Working on CERN Large Hadron Collider

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Pakistan Conducting Research in Antarctica

South Asians Primary Duty to Children

Food, Clothing and Shelter in India and Pakistan

Teaching Facts Versus Reasoning

Developing Pakistan's Intellectual Capital

Is America Losing Its Mojo?

Facts and Myths in Globalization Debate

Pakistan's Multi-Billion Dollar IT Industry

Digital Maps--Peshawar to Petaluma

Poor Quality of Higher Education in South Asia

Pakistani Military and Industrialization

Pakistani Defense Industry Goes High-Tech

South Asia Slipping in Human Development

Selling Jugaad to the West

Asia Gains in Top Universities

Pakistani Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

Venture Investing in India, China and Pakistan

Pakistan Ranks Among Top Outsourcing Destinations

Doing Business Rankings of Countries

Economic Challenges of India by Sean Kelly

Pakistani Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

Intellectual Capital Performance of Lahore Listed Companies

Pakistan: Sciencewatch Rising Star 2009

ASI: Creating intellectual capital, changing the climate of opinion

Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan

18 comments:

Riaz Haq said...

Here is a NY Times story on how China is luring top Chinese-American scientists from US:

BEIJING — Scientists in the United States were not overly surprised in 2008 when the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland awarded a $10 million research grant to a Princeton University molecular biologist, Shi Yigong.

Dr. Shi’s cell studies had already opened a new line of research into cancer treatment. At Princeton, his laboratory occupied an entire floor and had a $2 million annual budget.
----------------------------“He was one of our stars,” Robert H. Austin, a Princeton physics professor, said by telephone. “I thought it was completely crazy.”

China’s leaders do not. Determined to reverse the drain of top talent that accompanied its opening to the outside world over the past three decades, they are using their now ample financial resources — and a dollop of national pride — to entice scientists and scholars home.

The West, and the United States in particular, remain more attractive places for many Chinese scholars to study and do research. But the return of Dr. Shi and some other high-profile scientists is a sign that China is succeeding more quickly than many experts expected at narrowing the gap that separates it from technologically advanced nations.

China’s spending on research and development has steadily increased for a decade and now amounts to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product. The United States devotes 2.7 percent of its G.D.P. to research and development, but China’s share is far higher than that of most other developing countries.
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Quantity is not quality, and despite its huge investment, China still struggles in many areas of science and technology. No Chinese-born scientist has ever been awarded a Nobel Prize for research conducted in mainland China, although several have received one for work done in the West. While climbing, China ranked only 10th in the number of patents granted in the United States in 2008.

Chinese students continue to leave in droves. Nearly 180,000 left in 2008, almost 25 percent more than in 2007, as more families were able to pay overseas tuition. For every four students who left in the past decade, only one returned, Chinese government statistics show. Those who obtained science or engineering doctorates from American universities were among the least likely to return.

Recently, though, China has begun to exert a reverse pull. In the past three years, renowned scientists like Dr. Shi have begun to trickle back. And they are returning with a mission: to shake up China’s scientific culture of cronyism and mediocrity, often cited as its biggest impediment to scientific achievement.

They are lured by their patriotism, their desire to serve as catalysts for change and their belief that the Chinese government will back them.

“I felt I owed China something,” said Dr. Shi, 42, who is described by Tsinghua students as caring and intensely driven. “In the United States, everything is more or less set up. Whatever I do here, the impact is probably tenfold, or a hundredfold.”

He and others like him left the United States with fewer regrets than some Americans might assume. While he was courted by a clutch of top American universities and rose swiftly through Princeton’s academic ranks, Dr. Shi said he believed many Asians confronted a glass ceiling in the United States.
....................

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a NY Times story on how Azim Premji's foundation is helping improve primary education in India:

PANTNAGAR, India — The Nagla elementary school in this north Indian town looks like many other rundown government schools. Sweater-clad children sit on burlap sheets laid in rows on cold concrete floors. Lunch is prepared out back on a fire of burning twigs and branches.

But the classrooms of Nagla are a laboratory for an educational approach unusual for an Indian public school. Rather than being drilled and tested on reproducing passages from textbooks, students write their own stories. And they pursue independent projects — as when fifth-grade students recently interviewed organizers of religious festivals and then made written and oral presentations.

That might seem commonplace in American or European schools. But such activities are revolutionary in India, where public school students have long been drilled on memorizing facts and regurgitating them in stressful year-end exams that many children fail.

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Outside of India, many may consider the country a wellspring of highly educated professionals, thanks to the many doctors and engineers who have moved to the West. And the legions of bright, English-speaking call-center employees may seem to represent, to many Western consumers, the cheerful voice of modern India.

But within India, there is widespread recognition that the country has not invested enough in education, especially at the primary and secondary levels.

In the last five years, government spending on education has risen sharply — to $83 billion last year, up from less than half that level before. Schools now offer free lunches, which has helped raise enrollments to more than 90 percent of children.

But most Indian schools still perform poorly. Barely half of fifth-grade students can read simple texts in their language of study, according to a survey of 13,000 rural schools by Pratham, a nonprofit education group. And only about one-third of fifth graders can perform simple division problems in arithmetic. Most students drop out before they reach the 10th grade.
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Narayana Murthy, a friend of Mr. Premji and chairman of Infosys, a company that competes with Wipro, said he admired the Premji Foundation’s work but worried it would be undermined by the way India administers its schools.

“While I salute Azim for what he is doing,” Mr. Murthy said, “in order to reap the dividends of that munificence and good work, we have to improve our governance.”

Mr. Premji says his foundation would be willing to work with private schools. But he argues that government schools need help more because they are often the last or only resort for India’s poorest and least educated families.

Mr. Premji, whose bright white hair distinguishes him in a crowd, comes from a relatively privileged background. He studied at a Jesuit school, St. Mary’s, in Mumbai and earned an electrical engineering degree at Stanford.

At 21, when his father died, Mr. Premji took over his family’s cooking oil business, then known as Western Indian Vegetable Product. He steered the company into information technology and Wipro — whose services include writing software and managing computer systems — now employs more than 100,000 people. He remains Wipro’s largest shareholder.
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After visitors left a classroom at Nagla school, an instructor began leading more than 50 fifth-grade students in a purely rote English lesson, instructing the students to repeat simple phrases: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good night. The children loudly chanted them back in unison.
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Underfunding is pervasive in the district. But so are glimmers of the educational benefits that might come through efforts like the Premji Foundation’s.
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Riaz Haq said...

Dawn report on two young Pakistani girls who won Intel Science Award:

LOS ANGELES: Young Pakistani students used Nanotechnology to clean polluted water and won Third Place Grand Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the United States.

An announcement here on Saturday said that Ambreen Bibi and Mehwish Ghafoor of Islamabad won a Third Place Grand Award in the field of Environmental Sciences.
It said that they received the award and $ 1,000 for developing a treatment that utilizes nanotechnology to make polluted water drinkable.

Matthew Feddersen and Blake Marggraff from Lafayette, California were awarded the top prize. They received $ 75,000 and the Gordon E. Moore Award for developing a potentially more effective and less expensive cancer treatment that places tin metal near a tumor before radiation therapy.

Taylor Wilson from Reno, Nevada, was named an Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award winner and received $50,000. Taylor developed one of the lowest dose and highest sensitivity interrogation systems for countering nuclear terrorism.

‘We champion the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair because we believe that math and science are imperative for innovation’, said Naveed Siraj, Country Manager, Intel Pakistan.

‘This global competition features youth trying to solve the world’s most pressing challenges through science’.

This year more than 1,500 young entrepreneurs, innovators and scientists were selected to compete in the International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest high school science research competition.


http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/15/pakistani-students-win-prize-in-intel-science-fair.html

http://www.societyforscience.org/document.doc?id=308

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a recent Op Ed titled "The Real War With India" by HEC chair Javaid Leghari published in Newsweek Pakistan:

It’s hit an all-time low. Pakistan’s commitment to the higher education sector has been scaled back by 10 percent at the same time that India has raised its higher-education budget by 25 percent. This reduction is in addition to the 40 percent cut imposed last year. This shortsightedness imperils economic growth by stunting prospects of a viable middle class.

India has a population six times the size of Pakistan’s. Its GDP, at $1.8 trillion, is 10 times larger than ours. Its growth rate is 8.5 percent, ours is 2.4 percent. Its value-added exports, at $250 billion, are more than ours by a factor of 15; and its FDI, at $26 billion per year, dwarfs ours by a factor of 22. India is set to surpass Japan to become the world’s third largest economy by 2014. This has all been made possible, in no small measure, because of India’s human capital. Pakistan needs to take a leaf out of their book to realize the possible.

The World Bank identifies several key factors to achieve and sustain economic growth: education, a skilled workforce, information and communication technologies, and innovation. These are the veritable pillars of a knowledge economy. Likewise, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 lists higher education and training, technology readiness, and innovation as essential for competitiveness.

Catching up to the rest of the world must start now. And there is much ground to cover. For Pakistanis between the ages of 17 and 23, access to higher education is at 5.1 percent—one of the lowest in the world. (India is at 12.2 percent and aiming for 30 percent by 2020.) Pakistan has 132 universities for a population of 180 million and a student population of about 1.1 million. India has 504 universities with an enrollment of over 15 million (its enrolment target is 40 million by 2020). Pakistan has approved funding for two new universities. Over the next five years, India will have established 29 universities and 40 other institutes. Pakistan can today produce about 700 Ph.D.s every year (up from a dismal 200 in 2002) while India can produce 8,900 and China some 50,000.


http://www.newsweekpakistan.com/the-take/364

Riaz Haq said...

India has 602 university level institutions and Pakistan has 127.

I suggest that readers also read an Indian blogger's post "Why one million Indians Escape from India every year" to get a full dose of reality about "Shining India":

Here are a few excerpts:

Any crackdown on illegal immigrants abroad or restricting quotas to Indians are a major concern to India’s politicians. The latest statistics from US Department of Homeland Security shows that the numbers of Indian illegal migrants jumped 125% since 2000! Ever wondered why Indians migrate to another countries but no one comes to India for a living?
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Quit India!

Sixty years ago Indians asked the British to quit India. Now they are doing it themselves. To live with dignity and enjoy relative freedom, one has to quit India! With this massive exodus, what will be left behind will be a violently charged and polarized society.
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15 per cent Hindu upper castes inherited majority of India’s civil service, economy and active politics from British colonial masters. And thus the caste system virtually leaves lower caste Hindus in to an oppressed majority in India’s power structure. Going by figures quoted by the Backward Classes Commission, Brahmins alone account for 37.17 per cent of the bureaucracy. [Who is Really Ruling India?]

The 2004 World Development Report mentions that more than 25% of India’s primary school teachers and 43% of primary health care workers are absent on any given day!
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About 40 million primary school-age children in India are not in school. More than 92 % children cannot progress beyond secondary school. According to reports, 35 per cent schools don’t have infrastructure such as blackboards and furniture. And close to 90 per cent have no functional toilets. Half of India’s schools still have leaking roofs or no water supply.

Japan has 4,000 universities for its 127 million people and the US has 3,650 universities for its 301 million, India has only 348 universities for its 1.2 billion people. In the prestigious Academic Ranking of World Universities by Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong, only two Indian Universities are included. Even those two IITs in India found only a lower slot (203-304) in 2007 report. Although Indian universities churn out three million graduates a year, only 15% of them are suitable employees for blue-chip companies. Only 1 million among them are IT professionals.

http://escapefromindia.wordpress.com/

Riaz Haq said...

Results of PISA international test released by OECD in Dec, 2011, show that Indian students came in at the bottom of the list along with students from Kyrgyzstan:

Students in Tamil Nadu-India attained an average score on the PISA reading literacy scale that is significantly higher than those for Himachal Pradesh-India and Kyrgyzstan, but lower than all other participants in PISA 2009 and PISA 2009+.
In Tamil Nadu-India, 17% of students are estimated to have a proficiency in reading literacy that is at or above the baseline needed to participate effectively and productively in life. This means that 83% of students in Tamil Nadu-India are estimated to be below this baseline level. This compares to 81% of student performing at or above the baseline level in reading in the OECD countries, on average.
Students in the Tamil Nadu-India attained a mean score on the PISA mathematical literacy scale as the same observed in Himachal Pradesh-India, Panama and Peru. This was significantly higher than the mean observed in Kyrgyzstan but lower than those of other participants in PISA 2009 and PISA 2009+.
In Tamil Nadu-India, 15% of students are proficient in mathematics at least to the baseline level at which they begin to demonstrate the kind of skills that enable them to use mathematics in ways that are considered fundamental for their future development. This compares to 75% in the OECD countries, on average. In Tamil Nadu-India, there was no statistically significant difference in the performance of boys and girls in mathematical literacy.
Students in Tamil Nadu-India were estimated to have a mean score on the scientific literacy scale, which is below the means of all OECD countries, but significantly above the mean observed in the other Indian state, Himachal Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu-India, 16% of students are proficient in science at least to the baseline level at which they begin to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to participate actively in life situations related to science and technology. This compares to 82% in the OECD countries, on average. In Tamil Nadu-India, there was a statistically significant gender difference in scientific literacy, favouring girls.


http://www.acer.edu.au/media/acer-releases-results-of-pisa-2009-participant-economies/

Riaz Haq said...

Here are some excerpts from a piece by Lan Pritchett of Harvard University on India's poor performance on PISA:

Compared to the economic superstars India is almost unfathomably far behind. The TN/HP average 15 year old is over 200 points behind. If a typical grade gain is 40 points a year Indian eighth graders are at the level of Korea third graders in their mathematics mastery. In fact the average TN/HP child is 40 to 50 points behind the worst students in the economic superstars. Equally worrisome is that the best performers in TN/HP - the top 5 percent who India will need in science and technology to complete globally - were almost 100 points behind the average child in Singapore and 83 points behind the average Korean - and a staggering 250 points behind the best in the best.

As the current superpowers are behind the East Asian economic superstars in learning performance the distance to India is not quite as far, but still the average TN/HP child is right at the level of the worst OECD or American students (only 1.5 or 7.5 points ahead). Indians often deride America's schools but the average child placed in an American school would be among the weakest students. Indians might have believed, with President Obama, that American schools were under threat from India but the best TN/HP students are 24 points behind the average American 15 year old.

Even among other "developing" nations that make up the BRICs India lags - from Russia by almost as much as the USA and only for Brazil, which like the rest of Latin America is infamous for lagging education performance does India even come close - and then not even that close.

To put these results in perspective, in the USA there has been huge and continuous concern that has caused seismic shifts in the discourse about education driven, in part, by the fact that the USA is lagging the economic superstars like Korea. But the average US 15 year old is 59 points behind Koreans. TN/HP students are 41.5 points behind Brazil, and twice as far behind Russia (123.5 points) as the US is Korea, and almost four times further behind Singapore (217.5 vs 59) that the US is behind Korea. Yet so far this disastrous performance has yet to occasion a ripple in the education establishment.
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These PISA 2009+ results are the end of the beginning. The debate is over. No one can still deny there is a deep crisis in the ability of the existing education system to produce child learning. India's education system is undermining India's legitimate aspirations to be at the global forefront as a prosperous economy, as a global great power, as an emulated polity, and as a fair and just society. As the beginning ends, the question now is: what is to be done?


http://ajayshahblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-pisa-results-for-india-end-of.html

Riaz Haq said...

Here's an ANI report on gene mapping in Pakistan:

Karachi, June 28(ANI): Scientists at the Karachi University have mapped the genome of the first Pakistani man with the help of the Beijing Genomics Institute.

This has made Pakistan the first country in the Muslim world to map the genome of the first Muslim man.

The achievement places Pakistan in the ranks of the few countries- the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China and Japan- that have successfully sequenced the human genome as well.

"Our nation is a mix of a lot of races," said Professor Dr M Iqbal Choudhary, who heads the project. "Pakistanis are like a "melting pot" i.e. a mix of Mughals, Turks, Pashtuns, Afghans, Arabs, etc."

"According to the researchers, the newly sequenced Pakistani genome has uncovered a multitude of Pakistan-specific sites, which can now be used in the design of large-scale studies that are better suited for the Pakistani population," The Express Tribune quoted Dr Choudhary, who is the director of the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences at Karachi University, as saying.

The first Pakistani genome has been mapped using a recently developed technology, ten years after the first human genome was discovered.

Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research at the University of Karachi took 10 months to accomplish the task. The individual who has been genetically mapped is a resident of Karachi. (ANI)


http://in.news.yahoo.com/pakistan-becomes-first-islamic-country-map-genome-first-111639389.html

Riaz Haq said...

Here's Russian analyst Anatol Karlin on India's prospects and its comparison with China:

It is not a secret to longtime readers of this blog that I rate India’s prospects far more pessimistically than I do China’s. My main reason is I do not share the delusion that democracy is a panacea and that whatever advantage in this sphere India has is more than outweighed by China’s lead in any number of other areas ranging from infrastructure and fiscal sustainability to child malnutrition and corruption. However, one of the biggest and certainly most critical gaps is in educational attainment, which is the most important component of human capital – the key factor underlying all productivity increases and longterm economic growth. China’s literacy rate is 96%, whereas Indian literacy is still far from universal at just 74%.
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The big problem, until recently, was that there was no internationalized student testing data for either China or India. (There was data for cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, but it was not very useful because they are hardly representative of China). An alternative approach was to compare national IQ’s, in which China usually scored 100-105 and India scored in the low 80′s. But this method has methodological flaws because the IQ tests aren’t consistent across countries. (This, incidentally, also makes this approach a punching bag for PC enforcers who can’t bear to entertain the possibility of differing IQ’s across national and ethnic groups).
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Many Indians like to see themselves as equal competitors to China, and are encouraged in their endeavour by gushing Western editorials and Tom Friedman drones who praise their few islands of programming prowess – in reality, much of which is actually pretty low-level stuff – and widespread knowledge of the English language (which makes India a good destination for call centers but not much else), while ignoring the various aspects of Indian life – the caste system, malnutrition, stupendously bad schools – that are holding them back. The low quality of Indians human capital reveals the “demographic dividend” that India is supposed to enjoy in the coming decades as the wild fantasies of what Sailer rightly calls ”Davos Man craziness at its craziest.” A large cohort of young people is worse than useless when most of them are functionally illiterate and innumerate; instead of fostering well-compensated jobs that drive productivity forwards, they will form reservoirs of poverty and potential instability.

Instead of buying into their own rhetoric of a “India shining”, Indians would be better served by focusing on the nitty gritty of bringing childhood malnutrition DOWN to Sub-Saharan African levels, achieving the life expectancy of late Maoist China, and moving up at least to the level of a Mexico or Moldova in numeracy and science skills. Because as long as India’s human capital remains at the bottom of the global league tables so will the prosperity of its citizens....


http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2012/02/04/china-superior-to-india/

Riaz Haq said...

Here are excerpts of a paper on nanotechnology in Pakistan:

Pakistan stands out well in setting up a nanotechnology center by the Pakistan Council of scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), where facilities are for industry to use as well as for conducting R&D that meets industry needs. Its nanotechnology lab facilities are utilized for the development, synthesis and characterization of 12 different nanocomposite coatings used in industries including Orthopedic implants & Surgical, Cutting
Tool, Tool & Die and Textiles. Nanotechnology policy in Pakistan is made by its National Commission
on Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST). “We place our priority in industry development and support.
We have now a fully functional nanotechnology center that focuses on nanocoating, nanomaterials
and nanopowder R&D and industry development”, Dr Shehzad Alam, Director General of the PCSIR of
the Ministry of Science and Technology, emphasized during his presentation.


http://www.nano-globe.biz/News/UNNanoColomboDec09.pdf

http://www.ianano.org/Presentation-ICNT2005/Butt-Nano%20Science%20and%20Technology%20in%20Pakistan.pdf

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a Daily Times story on higher education growth in Pakistan:

Shaikh also highlighted the performance and achievements of government during last 10 years. He said that there are 71 universities in Pakistan in 2002, but in last 10 years, 66 new universities have been added in Pakistan. Previously, female enrolment was 37 percent, now it is 45 percent. Previously, numbers of PhDs were 1,500, now 10,000 new students have been enrolled in PhD, added the minister. He also mentioned that federal government has spent Rs 160 billion on promotion of higher education in the country. The federal minister said that federal government has transferred additional Rs 800 billion to provinces during the last four years to enable the provinces to provide their population best social services like health education. He also advised students to be proud and loyal Pakistanis. Shaikh said that it is a great day for the degree holding students, so they must thank their parents and teachers. He also assured that the government is doing every effort for the promotion of education sector in Pakistan.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\05\20\story_20-5-2012_pg5_1

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a News report on number of PhDs in Pakistan:

The Pakistani universities are now able to produce more PhDs in the next 3 years as compared to last 10 years. The total number of PhDs in Pakistan has reached the figure of 8,142.



According to the data available with ‘The News’, the number of PhDs has increased from 348 (1947 to 2002) to 679 in 2012 in agriculture and veterinary sciences, from 586 to 1,096 in biological sciences, from 14 to 123 in business education, from merely 21 to 262 in engineering and technology and from 709 to 1,071 in physical sciences. In social sciences, the number increased to 887 from 108 during last ten years.



The figures also indicate that during the last decade, special emphasis has been paid to the disciplines of agriculture and veterinary sciences, biological sciences, business education, engineering and technology, physical sciences and social sciences.



Expressing his view over this development, HEC Executive Director Professor Dr. Sohail H. Naqvi said that the production of these PhDs is the harbinger of a great future. “These researchers, who have worked on problems of crucial importance to Pakistan, will play a leading role in the production of knowledge workers with a potential to take Pakistan in the ranks of developed nations,” he added.



He further said that HEC since its inception has introduced various indigenous scholarship schemes to create a critical mass of highly qualified human resources in all fields of studies who conduct research on issues of importance to Pakistan. “These locally qualified academics and researchers are playing an important role to improve the research and development potential of public as well as private universities and it will also strengthen the local industrial sector. With the launching of the schemes, research culture in public or private sector universities has been developed in accordance with international standards.”



The education experts view this development as an achievement in the higher education sector of Pakistan.



Dr. Farida Faisal, a fresh PhD holder from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi in Economics, views this development as result of provision of incentives and various indigenous scholarship schemes introduced during last few years in Pakistan. She said that good aspect of this development is that along with quantity, there has been strong emphasis over quality of these PhDs, which will improve with the passage of time, she hoped.



She suggested that keeping in view the future needs of Pakistan; there is a need to produce more number of PhDs in the next ten years.



Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed, associate professor at the Institute of Business and Management, UET, Lahore, who has recently completed his PhD degree in Management Science with distinction from Foundation University, Islamabad, termed this achievement an outcome of reforms and education-friendly policies introduced by the HEC, which were aimed at promotion and research and academic activities nationwide and across the globe during the last decade.



In the first 55 years since Pakistan’s independence, a total of 3,281 PhDs were awarded at Pakistani universities. However, since the establishment of the HEC in 2002, over 4,850 PhDs have been awarded to-date, which is more than what was awarded in the previous 55 years.


http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-136296-Total-number-of-PhDs-reaches-8142-in-Pakistan

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a News Op Ed by Dr. Javaid Laghari of Pakistan's Higher Education Commission:

Universities in Pakistan have rapidly morphed into their new role as producers of knowledge and research that lead to innovation and entrepreneurship, create employment, and be prime builders of a knowledge economy.
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As per the Education Policy 2008, the HEC targets to increase accessibility to higher education from the current 8 percent to 15 percent by 2020, which translates into an increase in university enrolment from 1m to 2.3m. This is a major challenge tied to the funding situation. However, to achieve the best results effectively, in addition to establishing new campuses, the HEC is focusing on the use of educational technologies and through the recently established directorates of distance education.


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Faculty development programmes are the mainstay of the HEC. With over 7500 scholars currently pursuing their PhD degrees both within and outside the country, and an additional 2,200 having graduated and placed at universities and other organisations, it is estimated that with the projected growth in universities, at least 16,000 ‘additional’ PhD faculty will be required by 2020.



This will raise the percentage of the PhD faculty from the current 22 percent to 40 percent. Simultaneously, the standards for faculty appointment will become stringent. Starting in 2014, all lecturer appointments will require a MPhil/MS degree, and from 2016, all assistant professors and above will require a PhD degree.



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There has been a significant growth in the number and quality of the PhDs awarded. The number of PhDs awarded per year has increased to over 850 in 2011, with significantly higher standards. It is estimated that over 2400 PhDs will be awarded in 2020, which will give Pakistan the same competitive advantage in research and innovation as is available to China, India, Turkey and Malaysia.



The number of research publications out of Pakistan has gone up by 50 percent in the last two years alone. Scimago, an independent database, has projected that Pakistan will have the second-highest growth in the Asiatic region, moving up 16 notches from the current worldwide ranking of 43 to 27.



Offices of innovation, research and commercialisation, centres of advanced study and research in energy, food security, and water resource, incubators and technology parks are being established to link research and innovation with industry.

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This is already beginning to pay off, as today more than six Pakistani universities are ranked among the top 300 universities of the world, while there were none a few years ago. By 2015, we expect at least 10 universities to be in the top 300, with one in the top 100.



All HEC reforms are becoming the envy of other countries in the region. While Turkey already has a similar commission, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are in the process of replicating the HEC model, and India is going a step further and establishing a supra-HEC with far-reaching consequences to position itself as a regional leader.



The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report indicators on higher education and training, technology readiness and innovation are showing a consistent improvement over the last three years for Pakistan, much more than many other countries, which is clear proof that higher education reforms are paying off.



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Pakistan has achieved critical mass and reached a point of take-off. For this phenomenal growth to continue, it is important for the government and other stakeholders to support and further strengthen the HEC as a national institution and protect its autonomy. If this momentum continues for another 10 years, Pakistan is certain to become a global player through a flourishing knowledge economy and a highly literate population.


http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-147565-HEC-the-next-10-years

Riaz Haq said...

#China Set to Lead the World in Intellectual Property by Surpassing #US, #Japan #Patent Filings in 2017

http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/03/16/2017/china-set-lead-world-intellectual-property

ALEX FREW MCMILLAN

Who says nothing original comes out of China?

Within two years, my adopted home nation is set to surpass the United States in terms of the number of patents its citizens seek, according to newly released data. Already, two Chinese companies lead the world in seeking to protect their intellectual property.

Telecommunications- and networking-equipment maker ZTE (ZTCOY) , based in Shenzhen just across the mainland border from me here in Hong Kong, last year zoomed past its crosstown rival, the telecommunications- and networking-equipment maker Huawei Technologies, as the biggest filer of international patents in the world.

Yes, as a nation the United States took top spot for the 39th straight year running, making up 24.3% of the 233,000 patent applications filed in 2016 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2016.

Japan was next in line, accounting for 19.4% of the filings, and China came in third with 18.5% of the total. For corporate filers, Qualcomm (QCOM) ranked next after the Shenzhen telecom suppliers, with Mitsubishi Electric (MIELY) and LG Electronics (LPL) after that. As a result, Asia accounts for just under half, 47%, of all patent filings around the world.

Digital communications and computer technology are the leading fields for patent protection, with total patent requests for all industries up 7.3% over the previous year. All the figures are coming courtesy the World Intellectual Property Organization. The group just released 2016 stats on patents, trademarks and industrial designs.

On a nation-by-nation basis, it's China -- so often a source of counterfeiting and fakes -- that is driving the growth. The Middle Kingdom's filings rose 44% in 2016 and it has posted double-digit growth in patents every year since 2002. It's a dramatic shift for a nation that wasn't invited to trade pacts such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as much because it couldn't abide by its intellectual-property protections as any political considerations.

"China-based filers are behind much of the growth in international patent and trademark filings, making great strides in internationalizing their businesses as the country continues its journey from 'Made in China' to 'Created in China'," the director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Francis Gurry, said in announcing the results.

No doubt about it, China has a long history of imitation that verges on forgery. Its artists were encouraged to copy the works of the masters for years before attempting anything so daring as a creation of their own. Confucian society prizes traditional values and deference to elders. And under the Communist Party, it's best to toe the party line rather than get too many upstart ideas about various freedoms.

But China is changing at a pace that is unheralded in modern society. After Deng Xiaoping creaked the door to its walled-off economy open in 1979, promising "Socialism with Chinese characteristics," the country hasn't missed a beat. It has leaped from an agricultural economy of peasants right through an industrial revolution that lasted decades, not centuries, and on into a post-industrial world, at least on the east coast.

Capitalism with Chinese characteristics is more like it. China is communist in party only, and its leaders would frankly prefer if everyone stuck to the business of making money rather than thinking too closely about who they would like to see in charge.

Riaz Haq said...

#China to spend $300 billion to boost #hightech industries for self-sufficiency. Western tech firms worried.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/business/china-trade-manufacturing-miao-wei.html?_r=0

Made in China 2025, is designed to juice economic development in emerging industries by providing $300 billion in low-cost loans, research funds and other government aid.

But big companies in the rest of the world worry that the program gives an unfair advantage to homegrown players, with the stated goal of Chinese companies’ owning as much as 80 percent of specific domestic markets in eight years.

China’s minister of industry and information technology, Miao Wei, said the new policy was not meant to wall off the country’s companies from outside competition. Yet he also conceded, without offering specifics, that the plan might need changes.

“We never thought about closing ourselves and doing it only at home, but I think we need some adjustments,” he said on the second day of the China Development Forum, a three-day gathering of senior Chinese economic policy makers with corporate leaders and top economists from around the world.

And while China may want more local suppliers in some sectors, Mr. Miao said, in most industries “we still open up and welcome foreign companies to China.”

The Chinese program plays into the increasing sensitivities over global trade.

While President Xi Jinping of China has trumpeted the merits of globalization, his country has also been criticized for protectionist policies that favor Chinese companies. Adding to the frictions, President Trump has espoused an America First strategy, specifically calling out China on trade and currency.

Western companies fear that the Made in China policy could be used to justify government demands to hand over their latest technology as the price of staying in the Chinese market. They also worry that government-backed investment funds and other resources could be used to acquire many Western companies with key technologies while subsidizing their Chinese rivals.

One of the most contentious parts of the plan is how the country wants to meet Chinese demand with Chinese products. The two main approaches — requiring that a large part of a product’s value be created in China or setting a specific market share for domestic players — are strictly prohibited by the World Trade Organization.

Riaz Haq said...

#China Set to Lead the World in Intellectual Property by Surpassing #US, #Japan #Patent Filings in 2017

http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/03/16/2017/china-set-lead-world-intellectual-property

ALEX FREW MCMILLAN

Who says nothing original comes out of China?

Within two years, my adopted home nation is set to surpass the United States in terms of the number of patents its citizens seek, according to newly released data. Already, two Chinese companies lead the world in seeking to protect their intellectual property.

Telecommunications- and networking-equipment maker ZTE (ZTCOY) , based in Shenzhen just across the mainland border from me here in Hong Kong, last year zoomed past its crosstown rival, the telecommunications- and networking-equipment maker Huawei Technologies, as the biggest filer of international patents in the world.

Yes, as a nation the United States took top spot for the 39th straight year running, making up 24.3% of the 233,000 patent applications filed in 2016 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2016.

Japan was next in line, accounting for 19.4% of the filings, and China came in third with 18.5% of the total. For corporate filers, Qualcomm (QCOM) ranked next after the Shenzhen telecom suppliers, with Mitsubishi Electric (MIELY) and LG Electronics (LPL) after that. As a result, Asia accounts for just under half, 47%, of all patent filings around the world.

Digital communications and computer technology are the leading fields for patent protection, with total patent requests for all industries up 7.3% over the previous year. All the figures are coming courtesy the World Intellectual Property Organization. The group just released 2016 stats on patents, trademarks and industrial designs.

On a nation-by-nation basis, it's China -- so often a source of counterfeiting and fakes -- that is driving the growth. The Middle Kingdom's filings rose 44% in 2016 and it has posted double-digit growth in patents every year since 2002. It's a dramatic shift for a nation that wasn't invited to trade pacts such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as much because it couldn't abide by its intellectual-property protections as any political considerations.

"China-based filers are behind much of the growth in international patent and trademark filings, making great strides in internationalizing their businesses as the country continues its journey from 'Made in China' to 'Created in China'," the director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, Francis Gurry, said in announcing the results.

No doubt about it, China has a long history of imitation that verges on forgery. Its artists were encouraged to copy the works of the masters for years before attempting anything so daring as a creation of their own. Confucian society prizes traditional values and deference to elders. And under the Communist Party, it's best to toe the party line rather than get too many upstart ideas about various freedoms.

But China is changing at a pace that is unheralded in modern society. After Deng Xiaoping creaked the door to its walled-off economy open in 1979, promising "Socialism with Chinese characteristics," the country hasn't missed a beat. It has leaped from an agricultural economy of peasants right through an industrial revolution that lasted decades, not centuries, and on into a post-industrial world, at least on the east coast.

Capitalism with Chinese characteristics is more like it. China is communist in party only, and its leaders would frankly prefer if everyone stuck to the business of making money rather than thinking too closely about who they would like to see in charge.

Riaz Haq said...

#China ramped up its #research spending at an avg of 19.5 percent annually from 2003-2013. #tech http://www.computerworld.com/article/3182792/it-industry/5-reasons-why-china-will-rule-tech-2017-edition.html … via @computerworld

1. China’s big science ambitions include a moon base

In the 1950s, the U.S. considered establishing a 12-man Army base on the moon by 1965. The idea was too ambitious for the time and was dropped. Meanwhile, China has set its sights on a permanent lunar base.

2. China wants to win in high-performance computing

U.S. scientists -- including those at the National Security Agency -- believe China will soon lead the world in supercomputing.

“National security requires the best computing available, and loss of leadership in high performance computing (HPC) will severely compromise our national security,” wrote NSA and Energy Department scientists in a recent report.

3. China is attacking U.S. semiconductor dominance

For all its investment and advances, China is at least one and a half generations behind state-of-the-art semiconductors, according to a White House report released in January by President Barack Obama, just days before Trump took office. It was written with industry cooperation.

The report provides insights into criticisms that Trump leveled at China over trade practices. In its push to be first, China isn’t playing fair, the report states.

4. China plans to exceed the U.S. in R&D

China’s investment in R&D is rising so rapidly that the country is expected to surpass the U.S. in overall spending by 2020. This doesn’t necessarily mean that China is doing a better job at innovation. Other measures, such as patents registered in multiple countries, continue to point to the U.S. as the innovation leader.

5. China’s leadership is focused on science

During the campaign, Trump said he supported investment in science, but his proposed 2018 budget cuts science spending.

The cuts are so deep they “threaten our nation’s ability to advance cures for disease, maintain our technological leadership, ensure a more prosperous energy future, and train the next generation of scientists and innovators to address the complex challenges we face today and in the future,” said Rush Holt, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Riaz Haq said...

#China now produces 8 million #University graduates a year, twice as many as the #USA. #education

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/higher-education-in-china-has-boomed-in-the-last-decade

A record-breaking 8m students will graduate from Chinese universities in 2017. This figure is nearly ten times higher than it was in 1997 and is more than double the number of students who will graduate this year in the US.

Just two decades ago, higher education in China was a rare privilege enjoyed by a small, urban elite. But everything changed in 1999, when the government launched a program to massively expand university attendance. In that year alone university admissions increased by nearly 50% and this average annual growth rate persisted for the next 15 years, creating the largest influx of university educated workers into the labour market in history.

Annual enrolment of new students in higher education institutions.Author provided

Growth in the number of engineering students has been particularly explosive as part of the government’s push to develop a technical workforce which can drive innovation. But overall student numbers have increased in all subjects – even in the humanities and social sciences. New universities have sprung up and student enrolment numbers have rocketed. The second most popular subject major is in fact literature – and the fastest growing is law.

Underemployment

In 2013, Chinese citizens started blogging about the “hardest job hunting season in history” – and each year it seems to get harder for Chinese graduates. In 2017 there will be 1m more new graduates than there were in 2013. And yet, the graduate unemployment rate has remained relatively stable – according to MyCOS Research Institute, only 8% of students who graduated in 2015 were unemployed six months after graduating.

But if you delve a little deeper it’s clear that unemployment rates mask the more subtle issue of “underemployment”. While most graduates eventually find work, too many end up in part-time, low-paid jobs.

Six months after graduating, one in four Chinese university students have a salary that is below the average salary of a migrant worker, according to MyCOS data. History, law and literature have some of the lowest starting salaries, and also the lowest employment rates.

And for students who choose arts and humanities subjects in high school, the average starting salary after university is lower than that of their classmates who didn’t go to university, according to survey data. Of the 50 most common graduate occupations, 30% are low-skilled and don’t require a degree. For these students, low starting salaries and limited career progression call into question the value of their degree.

The high cost of living, particularly in big cities, has also forced millions of graduates into “ant tribes” of urban workers living in squalid conditions – often in basements – working long hours in low-paid jobs.

The big divide

But for a different group of graduates, the contrast is striking. Engineering, economics and science majors in China all enjoy high starting salaries and the top employment rates. These graduates fill the highest-paid entry positions in the most attractive employment sectors of IT, operations, real estate and finance. Chinese tech graduates do particularly well. In 2015 the top five highest paying graduate jobs were all IT related.