Building an innovation ecosystem in the GCC

Tamara El-Shibib: Good afternoon everyone, my name is Tamara El-Shibib and thank you for joining our first session of this webinar series on tech transfer and innovation in the GCC. The purpose of this series is to discuss different topics within the umbrella of tech transfer and innovation and this topic is important to us because there is such a big focus over the last 15 years on boosting innovation in the region and creating a new source of national wealth so promoting economic diversification towards innovation and entrepreneurship and this is at the heart of the national visions of the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. We know there has been a lot of investment in R&D in creating an innovation enabling equal system in attracting and developing innovative start-ups and these investments need to create value and sustainable growth for these economies.

So usually these countries, or countries generally use different innovation rankings or indicators to measure their progress towards an innovation economy and the UAE in particular uses the Global Innovation Index by INSEAD and WIPO and as of 2021 the ranking stood at 33 and how these rankings work is they basically look at innovation inputs relative to innovation outputs and the innovation inputs will consider parameters like human capital and research, ICT infrastructure, market and business sophistication so the UAE ranks very highly on those innovation inputs.

The outputs look at knowledge and technology outputs and creative outputs and they measure things like patent filings, publications, high tech exports and tangible assets, those kind of things and in terms of the outputs we are definitely higher on the inputs than we are on the outputs. So basically what that is telling us is we are not so good at converting or translating our innovation inputs into innovation outputs.

So the focus of this series really is to discuss the challenges and the gaps in translating the inputs into outputs and we are focussing specifically on the GCC region because we have a unique set of challenges in the region and it is not a case of sort of adopting a model somewhere else, we need to come up with solutions that are context specific. I am hoping that this webinar will become a platform where we can discuss and share experiences within that area and then maybe even explore opportunities for collaboration.

For the first session I thought we could start off by discussing the basics, so innovation is an overused term and I really wanted to just sort of get back to the fundamentals, what do we mean when we say innovation ecosystem, what is innovation and how is IP important to that?  Before we start with the panel introductions there will be an opportunity to answer questions at the end of the session so if you could please type in any questions you have in the Q&A chat and we will get to that at the end. There will also be a short survey that you will be prompted to answer at the end of the session so I would really appreciate if you could answer that, that will give us some really good feedback in terms of how to improve future sessions in terms of content and format.

So, with that I am going to turn to our panel speakers for some introductions. I'm going, just going off my screen I'm going to start with you Bow. Can you give us a bit of an introduction?  You are on mute.

Bowman Heiden: That is right. Thanks so much for inviting me here. I have a little bit of an eclectic past, starting out and playing basketball and then moving into intellectual property and then I created a Centre for Intellectual Property in Sweden, for where I spent 20 years where I have been Co-Director, working with the Swedish innovation system, so I have some experience from Sweden in this regard and then was the Innovation Director at the Qatar Science & Technology Park so I gained some experience in the GCC and now I am Executive Director for a centre at Haas School of Business at University of California Berkeley so now in the Silicon Valley ecosystem, learn a bit more from there so it is always interesting to talk about innovation and it is always interesting to see how people understand it differently from different places. So again thanks for inviting me here today.

Tamara: We are happy to have you here. Tala you are next on my screen. Can you give us a quick intro?

Tala Al Ansari: Of course. So I come from a background of innovation, change management and strategy. I am currently part of the EXPO 2020 team which is an event that is all about showcasing knowledge and innovation from across the world. Currently my role is to lead on building the innovation ecosystem for EXPO which is part of our legacy plans and what we are going to do with the entire site after the EXPO is over. It will be opened up into a space called District 2020 which is a human centric city and an innovation ecosystem and that is the part I am currently focussed on curating.

Tamara: OK. Sean.

Sean Flanigan: Good afternoon everybody and thanks for having me. My name is Sean Flanigan and I am the Director of the Tech Transfer office here at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology or KAUST. We are located just north of Jeddah on the Red Sea here in Saudi Arabia and I have been here about three years. Prior to that I was the Director of the Industry Liaison Office in pretty much the same role at the National University of Singapore, before that I was doing this at the University of Ottawa in Canada. So I have had an opportunity to practice technology transfer and see it evolve in three different countries as well as having the opportunity to lecture and discuss the ecosystems as they develop and as varied locations as South Africa to Malaysia to China and like, so I am very pleased to be here and I am looking forward to hearing the insights today.

Tamara: We are happy to have you, and Ziad?

Ziad Sankari: Thank you for inviting me. So my name is Ziad Sankari. I am the Founder CEO of CardioDiagnostics, a company that is building and commercialising of medical technologies, particularly for remote patient monitoring, so we help patients with heart disease and diabetes to get monitored outside of hospital for long periods of time. Our group of companies are registered in the US, in Lebanon and in Abu Dhabi global markets so we have offices in California, Texas, Beirut, Lebanon and in Abu Dhabi as well and I am happy to share my experience of building technologies across those markets.

Tamara: Thank you. I have a really great panel of speakers today, I am really excited about. So these are the topics we are going to cover, so initially we thought it would be good to just sort of define the basics, the basic concepts that we are going to be referring to a lot. So innovation, innovation ecosystem, tech transfer, IP. What do these things mean? How do they interrelate and then we will discuss some of the challenges and the gaps in these areas as we see them and then we will also discuss a little bit, the strengths that we have here in the region and the potential opportunities to address these. We will talk a little bit about experiences from other countries. Like I said we are a unique model here so we cannot really import a model from somewhere else but there are lessons that we can learn from other places. So it will be good to sort of benchmark a little bit with those and then we will summarise at the end what are the key takeaways from this so with that I am going to start with introducing some of the key, the common terms that we are going to be using.

So I get asked a lot about how IP is important or why it is important for innovation. I think it is really important just to basically summarise this. To me IP is not just a legal term, it is not just, when we say IP we do not just mean patents and trademarks we mean intangible assets and those can be registered with IP rights, like patents and trademarks and design and they can be unregistered assets, so they can be, you know, your software, your inventions, your data, your customer relationships. These are all assets that are intangible that create value for something and we know that IP is important for innovation because when you look at, you know, companies in an knowledge economy we can see that 80-90%25 of them the value of those companies lies in their intangible assets and not in their physical or financial assets. And so IP is important for driving economic growth. It is important to these companies and these companies are the backbone of the economy.

In terms of tech transfer I personally see that as sort of the bridge between invention and technical discovery and the application of those and basically that is also innovation, so the application of new knowledge, new discovery, new inventions and the transformation of those into products and services that impact society, that is innovation.

I'm going to ask my panel speakers if they agree or if they want to add anything to that before we jump straight in.

Tala: I think you summed that up really nicely. Yes I think it is about delivering value that really distinguishes between invention and innovation and you really highlighted that, so.

Bowman: When it comes to intellectual property I think it is good to have a broad sense, you know, when I ask people like if I have a bunch of MBAs and I say, or executive MBAs from industry and I say what is intellectual property. Some of them will say technology, design, software, brands but some of them will say copyright, trademark.

Tamara: Yes.

Bowman: Patent, so you need to understand that these are different things but they are interrelated and it is the control of these key assets that gives you this position that helps you create business and competitive advantage and so I think broad approach that you talk about is very good.

Sean: I think, I mean I think about a crazy fact that the value of Uber is worth more than all the rental car companies and airlines combined so when it comes to transportation the intellectual property that exists in the operation of Uber has created tremendous value because of the realisation and the utilisation of that intellectual property within the business model, so yes I think you are bang on.

Tamara: I think, sorry yes go ahead.

Ziad: I just wanted to highlight it was interesting that you pointed out that customer relationships are among the intellectual property that are often overlooked because I think when we looked at acquiring smaller companies in the past we looked at their customer relationships, the contracts they have signed. I am in healthcare so it is with insurers, with payers. That was very important in determining the value of a particular organisation so that is absolutely important IP.

Tamara: Yes and I agree and I think with Sean as well, something that you said as well regarding Uber, I mean Airbnb is also another example of that right?  Like they do not have any physical assets but the company is worth so much so they are able just to sort of utilise this platform and everything that they have created under that to create such a valuable company without actually owning any physical assets, so.

Bowman: You can see that in Coca Cola as well. Coca Cola is basically a licensing company, they licence the brand and, well they have the secret, but they give out certain places to bottle, we don't have bottles anymore do we, but so it is all their physical capital is outsourced so they have very little on the balance sheet in that regard.

Tamara: Yes and I always remember the example that you said Bow once regarding Nike as well, you said like the shoe itself, you know it probably doesn't cost $200 or $300 to make but when you put the tick on it, it becomes worth that so the brand is behind that, it is the value of that brand that allows them to be able to charge those kind of prices.

Bowman: Yes the factories that make the shoes do not make the money that people and organ managing the sluice make all the money right?

Tamara: Exactly. When it comes to innovation ecosystems to me that basically means all the elements that have to be there to create a market that can monetise and I guess transact IP. Is that, would you agree with that?  Let me start with you Bow.

Bowman: Yes the innovation ecosystem, it is a little bit like this unicorn thing right, everyone talks about them but what does it actually mean and it is different in different places. I think that all the elements that you have here are true and it is a little bit like, you know, a good chef, a chef could give me the recipe but I am probably not going to make the dish as well as they would right?  So all these ingredients are important but in what proportions and how they fit together is a little bit, you know, a mystery to some extent about how this comes together. I mean that is why everyone has tried to reproduce Silicon Valley but it is impossible, even Silicon Valley does not know how to reproduce Silicon Valley, so you have to kind of find your own way, your own path, but you definitely need these ingredients and you need to experiment and be ready, just like a good entrepreneur. The entrepreneurial system has to pivot and learn as well and move forward.

Tamara: Yes. I really think that maybe some of these things are more advanced in some countries than other things.

Tala: I think also it is important to distinguish like when we talk about an innovation ecosystem you could do it on a city level or on a science park level and that is also quite different but the real value really comes out of the interactions and the value that is created as a result of all these stakeholders interacting together to like an aligned goal and creating additional value for the economy and this is what really makes the difference. It is how these independent units, they are actually economically dependent on one another, how do they generate value working together is what really then brings out the value of the innovation ecosystem overall.

Bowman: And when you think about like Silicon Valley just for example it becomes part of how people do things over time so it is the invisible hand making everything move. In the beginning everything is very much the visible hand, you know, top down. In Sweden it is the same, I am sure in GCC it is like when the government puts in these different peoples but in reality the innovation system is not really a system until it just happens on its own.

Tamara: It needs to happen on its own.

Bowman: You have to get it, and that has to evolve right, you cannot top down an innovation system in the long run, you can do it to get the ball rolling of course, and it was the same with Silicon Valley, the government got the ball rolling there as well.

Sean: And the challenge is I think for a lot of jurisdictions where economic development agencies are looking to replicate those successes, they identify the component elements and say ok well we have finance, we have government, we have entrepreneurism, why is it not working and they have to recognise, I mean the very nature we use and overuse I think innovation ecosystem is one of those terrible terms where there is a lot of use but not necessarily a lot of understanding of what is going to be intended, is it the requisite elements have to support each other, and that is the element of the original notion of a natural ecosystem coming together and supporting each other to create a bubble of life and I think what we are trying to do is create a bubble of innovation but if the money is not talking to the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs are not talking to their customers, I mean the challenge is when you say we want to do innovation and you do not let it develop organically, then you run the risk of having a whole bunch of pieces but not necessarily having them work together.

Bowman: Sorry Ziad, go ahead.

Ziad: No I actually fully agree and there is one point I wanted to highlight when I think of an innovation ecosystem I think of human capital because that is most important, then rules and regulations makes it easier for those human capital to interact, transact and innovate but most importantly I think there is a missing component that is not often brought up which is the culture and the mindset. One thing that I have seen in Silicon Valley that I have not necessarily seen in other parts of the country and the US or other parts of the world that is kind of innate to that ecosystem was the willingness to share the risk and share the value with the employees by stock options, by offering basically incentives to be a part of a real company. I have not seen it not even in certain parts of the US that I have interacted with, so probably a culture and mindset is crucial to make a system work successfully.

Bowman: Would you say Ziad that in Silicon Valley my feeling is very positive some oriented. Everyone who meets you thinks oh we could do something together and make something more as opposed to this idea that that person could take something from me, zero something, very positive some thinking which is unique. I am not sure how you would just create that so easily.

Tamara: Did that develop over time? I mean is that something that would happen here organically or is there sort of, does that sort of top line need to come in and push that?

Ziad: Let me give my quick perspective from in the Middle East. I think this culture is coming back to us, we are learning it. We have a lot of people who believe now that employees have to share the benefits of their hard work, of the organisation's success and I think the VC concept is becoming more mature in the Middle East and in the GCC in particular. I think those ideas are coming, it takes time obviously but it is getting there.

Tamara: So I think we have touched on a little bit about this, but basically the challenges in the region. So what are the challenges and I think we have covered some of these already. Like from an IP perspective I can see challenges in the IP, I guess value, chain in terms of creating IP, protecting IP and commercialising it as well. There is definitely areas for improvement there. What would you say are the challenges that you saw Bow in Qatar when you spent time there?

Bowman: Yes I think I would go back to what Sean said. I think the idea of innovation is a buzz word but we try to define it for people who … it is probably one of the terms that every government in the world and everyone agrees with. So that and the Olympics, these are like the only two things in society right but we do not really know what it means. We use it all the time and so I think that and because it is not really understood and it is because it is a buzz word it is very good to talk about. I think you said in the beginning Tamara that, was that the UAE was very good on input measurements but not as good on output and because it is easier to spend money on things.

Tamara: Yes.

Bowman: And say that we are doing innovation but innovation really is only in the output, now you need input to get output and in the end it is output. Sweden is very similar in that way. We spend a lot per GDP but it is a small country so I think that the problem, or the challenges of course is how do you get a critical mass of activity on one end and then how do you scale on the other end. When you are a small country you struggle with the critical mass of research and development capabilities that build this ecosystem and then you do not have the internal market to scale inside so you have to scale out into places and, you know, in the United States you have a big country to scale out to with roughly a similar regulatory system as the outset but when you are in the MENA region it is complicated. It is even complicated in the EU as much as we try to make it easy. Especially when you are talking about tech transfer, science and technology driven. This really requires a lot of time to build that base. If you are talking more about market pull like apps and other solutions for market problems those are a little bit easier to get going I think.

Tala: I think also like when we look at benchmarking, something important to remember is, it is kind of difficult to compare one nation to another even though we do it on a global innovation ranking, like it is important to note that Dubai and the UAE are only 50 years old and we are at a different stage in the innovation and entrepreneurship cycle than other markets. But that being said we definitely can learn from a lot of what the other markets have done as we have been saying through this call and I think when we looked at various studies that were done globally, one of the main things we realised was a challenge for innovation is there was not really a holistic innovation ecosystem in Dubai that brought all these stakeholders together in one place and that is one of the reasons why we wanted to set this up as a part of the legacy of the EXPO in the UAE, is because we realised we have all the elements but they are not all in one location, collaborating and co-creating, so now we are going to have the government, citizens, businesses and academia working a lot more closely to co-create the solutions of the future.

I think also like one of the things that I personally think is a root cause for challenges in innovation not just regionally but maybe overall in the world, is the education system. When you look at the education system like school teachers, you, things that are exactly the opposite of entrepreneurship and innovation so at school you only have, you know you can only have one right answer to a question, whereas in entrepreneurship and like in the real market that is not the case, we have multiple solutions that come to resolve one problem.

Bowman: You create your own answers right Tala?

Tala: Yes, I mean like you know at the end of the day we realise that if there is not one right answer to a question, you know. Another one is, I mean, at school if you do not answer the question the way you are expected to then you kind of get punished for it by grades being deducted but as an entrepreneur one of the … you know all these serial entrepreneurs that we see out there, they have done really well because of their failures, it has been a big part of their success journey.

Tamara: Yes.

Tala: So I feel like that is one of the root causes or challenges to innovation is that the education system does not really graduate entrepreneurs and problem solvers, it graduates employees and job seekers and kind of you know, like a one correct answer kind of a model which does not really work when it comes to innovation as well.

Tamara: Yes and I think you see a lot of countries as well that are like focused on building you know, or supporting innovation. They do focus a lot on like you know preparing or giving tools I guess for entrepreneurs that they can use to like upskill in like innovation management and commercialisation. That is something that I think because these are areas that are not taught in school, like you said, you cannot study innovation, you kind of, you might get a course here or there as part of NDA but it is not a programme that you study and so you kind of, you have to learn through experience and then there is all these support structures that are there in some countries to help you if you need help, you know, and upskilling in those areas.

Tala: Yes and it goes back to Ziad's point on mindset and culture in an ecosystem right? I think like you start mindset from that age at school, so that is where it would really make a difference to the ecosystem.

Bowman: In the United States we keep bringing in people with that mindset so we do not always have enough of them either in the United States so we immigrate, that is the great success story of the United States, immigration.

Tamara: Yes and I actually saw that the US passed another Act, I think today I saw that and I read that basically it was going to be easier for start-ups and PhD holders to get permanent residence in the US, so that is definitely something that I guess we can look to from other countries as well, that they try to find ways to attract and retain the talent.

Bowman: What is the patience?  I thought patience was a bit of an issue when I was in Qatar. Sean what do you say, everyone is impatient, you know it is like we want …

Sean: I'm sorry Bow, patience?

Bowman: Yes patience, it is like …

Sean: I am not sure I understand what you mean by that?  That just does not … I mean that is one of the challenges, expectation management is a function of your preparedness to wait for the magic to happen. I mean you know shops like the Stamford and OTL and the MIT technology licencing offices were overnight successes 30 years in the making. You know the opportunities do exist but they do take time. We are a university that is 12 years old. Now our original patents have not even come near expiring as of yet and you know so as compared to universities that are hundreds and hundreds of years old and have had a history of innovation, the problem is when you have enlightened individuals who say OK we want to foster a base innovation and we are going to support research and we are going to encourage people from around the world to come and innovate or to do research with us and then our own citizens to study and do research here, but then the expectation is that that immediately turns into instant success but I think it is a necessary element.

I think universities are a great place to foster innovation ecosystems within a country because you have got young people, a necessary ingredient and they are on a timescale that we just cannot appreciate once the other hair starts to get a little greyer around the edges because they are trying to get things done before they graduate, they are trying to get things done before they go and they are more risk tolerant and so they are prepared to go out and sacrifice and do those kinds of things. And what we want to say is how can we just keep doing it over and over and over again and then we keep going back to government and they are stakeholders. I mean it is not necessarily just government, it could be the internal as well as external stakeholders and we almost seem apologetic, it is like well we just need a little bit more time in order to get things along but it is a game of trying to explain the challenges, the nuance of doing this without seeming apologetic for a lack of results. But then you know results do start to come along and then it becomes once you have done a little bit of innovation then they start, you know, the expectations start to ramp up towards gazelles and unicorns.

So yes I know what you mean, patience is a commodity that we always hope for but we do not necessarily have the luxury of.

Bowman: If you think of diversification I mean if your economy sells a hundred billion in oil and gas, you want to diversify like 20%25 which is not that much diversification, that is $20 billion a year, of something new, that you cannot sell in your own economy because it is too small that you are going to need to sell to other places in competition with other people. That is not an easy task, that is not going to happen overnight.

Sean: And successes, you are asking people to do things differently than they already were because necessity being the mother of invention often, you know, insecurity either financial, geographic or otherwise is what drives innovative solutions and technologies, especially when it comes to the adoption of technologies that can translate into wider use. So we have a tremendous blessing in the region to have the resources that have come from oil and gas but now we have to be patient. It took billions of years for those resources to turn into money, we are just looking for may be a decade.

Tamara: OK, sorry let me just jump straight to the next one. So just going off of what you have just said as well, like is there things that we should be focussing on that can help us sort of bypass or like speed up you know that transition, or is it just a process of, you know, let time take care of it, over time the culture or mindset will change and all these things will come together? Where do you see the opportunity that we should be focusing on to try to sort of hit the nail on the head if you like? Bow?

Bowman: I think Ziad should start because he has suffered, he has been suffering, that is a normal state of entrepreneur suffering.

Ziad: You are absolutely right. I have been through a lot and actually over the past almost a decade that I have been building this company and this innovation with the rest of the team, I have seen things that are changing in a positive direction so if we go back to the basics I think number one is human capital so we definitely need to focus a lot more on human capital, on raising them not only technically but culture wise in a way that they become creative, they become able to voice their concerns, voice their ideas without being worried about prejudice or other people's opinion that may not coincide with the common culture in a particular society. Next would be rules and regulations and I see a lot of countries around the GCC doing a great job and changing the rules and regulations. Back to your point Bow about immigration looks like the UAE has recently enacted a rule about the golden visa and attracting talents to it so maybe Tala could speak a little more about that. I think it is a very good step in the right direction and I know a lot of entrepreneurs who have now relocated from different countries in the Middle East to Abu Dhabi and Dubai because of that particular rule.

I also believe that in addition to those two there is a need for us to accept locally grown products and I think this is a problem. Every time we try to sell our products in a GCC country we were asked for a US reference which we had but the point is it is outstanding to learn that everybody wanted a reference from a Western country for them to be willing to adopt or try something new that is novel and innovative in their own. So those are ideas that I think we could push forward and I think a lot of steps in the right directions have been taken already.

Tamara: Yes I have definitely seen some push towards supporting home grown innovation, it is even happening already as well. Tala do you want to say anything to what Ziad mentioned?

Tala: Sure. Yes I think very rightly so we have definitely, especially after Covid, I think the government in the UAE were very blessed, they are very agile, they looked at what we need in terms of talent retention, how can we create more opportunity out of this current circumstance and so there was definitely a focus on long term resident visas, golden visas, even citizenship to scientists, the creative industry, inventors, that all came out last year as well just to kind of help build that talent pool locally even further. So those are some of the areas that we focused on but I think it is also a matter of realising the importance, as I said, of building a holistic innovation ecosystem to kind of really address the gap that the government identified as currently taking place locally here in the UAE and kind of having a mandate to make that part of the EXPO's legacy was also a response to creating an opportunity and boosting innovation.

I think Tamara you were asking like should we leave the ecosystem to grow organically or should we do something about it. I think if we think of this like an orchestra where you would have people playing different instruments you would need a maestro to kind of help bring, you know, bring that symphony out together from the different stakeholders and that is how I think of an ecosystem. You would have someone that plays the violin beautifully, the piano beautifully, so you have got your academia, you have got your R&D centres, you have got your labs, but then you need a maestro, an ecosystem developer who would then kind of orchestrate the symphony that comes out of this whole thing and that is how I think, you know, an innovation ecosystem would be successful. It is curating it to bring the right players from either a similar industry or from a similar technology of focus so that you really align their goals and then they build on each other and drive a lot more value together so I would say it is not just organic, I think it is important to have someone to kind of orchestra, help, enable it basically, put the elements together but then everyone does their role in playing their instrument let us say.

Tamara: I agree with you. I think I have been sort of studying different countries sort of national innovation plans, if you like, or strategies. I have noticed that most of it is like top down in a way, like there is a whole government like effort to bring in, you know, the universities and incentivise industries but it usually comes from the government, it comes top down and then they sort of check their progress against it every few years. So I agree with you that having sort of different bodies or agencies providing a certain level of support and waiting might not be like the most optimal way to guarantee that we are heading in that direction.

Tala: Yes but I think just as important as it is to have that body that kind of governs everything, it is also just as important to follow design thinking principles where even though the government is there to give you all the tools that the government is also really listening to what it is that start-ups need so what Ziad faced in the past does not happen again as we move along. I mean what he shared today was really an interesting insight, something that me as an ecosystem developer has to keep in mind like why is he being asked, you know, for references from abroad, it is things like that so it is working very closely and that is kind of the model that we have developed at District 2020, is having the human centric approach, embracing design thinking principles where you are working with entrepreneurs to say what it is that you really need, what are you not finding in the market today so we could help enable that and help you achieve your goals better and doing the same with academia, doing the same with Fortune 500 companies and businesses that we are bringing from abroad as well.

Tamara: Yes. Sean what would you say are the biggest pain points for you at KAUST in terms of like technology, commercialisation?

Sean: I think it's just awareness, I mean, we just do not have an ecosystem where people have gone through the process a couple, a few times and have experienced what it is like to bring a technology to maturity, to go through the process of engaging with partners to develop, you know, engagements with potential customers and understanding, so I mean and we recognise that but those are all of the elements that are there so, you know, the programmes that we have put together such as entrepreneurships for all and the launch last year of the massive online open course in entrepreneurship in Arabic which had over 71,000 people, primarily young people, in the region sign up. It is a recognition that there is a tremendous demand for learning about how to do these things and you know there is a lot of people who wonder whether you can teach entrepreneurship or not but I think if we do not keep providing resources, whether you call it teaching or training or experiential opportunities or the like, then we will miss the boat, what will end up happening is that there will be another jurisdiction because innovation now is a global game, people can, they can do it from their living room, you know in Lisbon, and have a company running in Cleveland, I mean it is not impossible to do so we need to be providing the resources for our most precious resources, our young people, they are going to be the people who start the most companies and as a result we want to get them ready for that and then be there to support them and I think the number one thing that we try to do is get out of the way as much as possible and I think you know, like any good parent or role model you want to be there to support but not to smother and that is I think something that we try to do, is to give advice and to give guidance but then let them learn how to take the risks themselves and they may fail but that is something that we also have to be prepared to celebrate.

Tamara: Yes.

Bowman: Can I add one thing to that Tamara?

Tamara: Yes.

Bowman: I think that this willingness to fail and I guess that it needs to go even completely to the other side where things have to fail, you cannot build an ecosystem, innovation ecosystem with failure. Sometimes in Sweden for example you know, I think that companies are helped too much, you need to give them enough help to get them over the hump then they have to prove themselves and if they do not then they do not and then there has to be this tough love. When you use the word innovation ecosystem that is a real structural thing in Sweden, you know, there is like someone that is in charge in some way on this, and there. In the United States it is just a concept, there is no innovation ecosystem activity. No one is in charge of that from the government. It is completely bottom up.

Tamara: Yes.

Bowman: And so there is an argument that we should not have a national innovation strategy, we should not have that because that would mean the government would be too intrusive. So I think it is important for people to know that there is a difference between the government participating and setting rules that facilitate entrepreneurship but in a laissez-faire way, as opposed to trying to be on the market itself and manipulate how and pick the winners and I know when I was in Qatar it could be very political. I just do not think you can do entrepreneurship in politics, you cannot be so political, it has to bottom up, yes.

Tamara: Yes so like building capabilities in this area as well is like top priority and I know that Bow you co-founded a centre for IP in Sweden. I am curious what got you to that point?

Bowman: So the focus with our centre was to build something that was connected to industry so it was very a centre for IP from a business perspective or a strategic management perspective, because we felt that people did not see, you know, in a knowledge economy it is not really a knowledge economy because knowledge has always been in the economy. It is really more of a control of knowledge economy so you need to control the knowledge because everyone can produce things nowadays so it is the control of knowledge that determines competitiveness and control of knowledge you are going to brush up against the concept of intellectual property so it becomes a kind of foundational resource thinking as opposed to land labouring capital to talk about.

Now the problem with the word IP is that it is too legal-ish sounding right so I try not to use the word very often even though I think about it conceptually, I try to talk more about how people are going to control their technology to get it out onto the market and that is going to be very different in all places and I am sure Ziad knows better than others that he probably has a different IP thinking in the US than he does in Lebanon or in the Middle East and other places.

Ziad: Yes and actually one point I wanted to add to this conversation is the fact that creating role models in respect of that point, creating role model companies or success stories would be probably the most effective way for young entrepreneurs or young innovators to look ahead, it is kind of the compass that says this is where you could get if you work hard and build the right components of a success story. So I think we are starting to see that in the Middle East, I mean with exits of a number of high profile companies, acquisition of Souq Amazon, recent listing of two companies Swivel and ANGHAMI on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, great success stories that eventually will create a lot of positively jealous people who want to do a better job and create a better balance to the country so that is probably one way to push the innovation ecosystem forward as well.

Tamara: Yes I agree. I think we need more sort of good examples and good case studies.

Bowman: But then you have to be careful that the Americans are not going to steal all your ideas and people and bring them over there. That is what Americans do, we steal, we steal people's good ideas from other and people, so you need to retain the people and the ideas in the Middle East, that is the next thing then.

Tamara: Yes.

Bowman: It is a big lure, the lure, look at Ziad now he is in Silicon Valley, we lure them over.

Ziad: Unfortunately it is kind of like the world is not set up in a fair way and then the US has around 400 million people, there are a lot more people in Asia in terms of population but still 40%25 of any major market is probably in the United States. It does not reflect proportionately to the population but there is a huge concentration of innovation opportunities and potential to grow in the United States and I think this is something that was built over time, other parts of the world can try to track more of that value but obviously it takes a lot of work and a lot of willingness to bring in that success to the world.

Tamara: In terms of, you know, models that have worked anywhere else or sort of takeaways from other nations, is there anything that you would say is a positive sort of lesson that we can take from other places?

Sean: I would say look at the mistakes that have been made and try not to replicate them. There are a number of tools that any region or country or city is going to have in their tool chest that they can take advantage of and it is how they put them together, to Tala's point about the orchestra, you know, you want to create that harmony between the pieces as opposed to saying it must sound like this, it must look and feel like Kendal Square or it has to have, you know, in a couple of years' time we will be saying it has to look exactly like innovation 2020.

The notion that you can just take somebody else's success and replicate it and to Bow's point, you know, in the States where nobody was saying let us make an innovation ecosystem and then, you know, it just happened and then to try to replicate it, because you have to play to your strengths, you have to look at the advantages that come with attracting, I think, you have to be able to attract foreign direct investment as well as foreign individuals, people who want to come and contribute to the ecosystem because if you do not have that attractiveness then what you end up with is you are waiting longer I think.

So I think you can look at examples of what have successes looked like in places whether it is out of Sweden or out of, there have been great successes regionally and in some tech companies in Cairo and in Lebanon and you know we are moving past the stage of are unicorns looking like companies that have been done from other places and what we want to do here is, deep tech companies so you know, things that come from research and come from, that have got a solid background of a wide range of intangible assets. But that would not necessarily work some place else so we have to be mindful that when we create incentives, when we create expectations and we create programmes. You know, when I went to Singapore I did not try to do what we had done in Canada and in North America. I listened more than I spoke which is hard to believe and then when I got here I did the same thing and I said what are our strengths and how can we manage our expectations. So I think that what we have here in KAUST is probably, you know, a North American risk taking with a bit of South East Asian attention to detail, but with the urgency of the GCC to get things done very quickly.

Tamara: I am going to actually, because I have realised the time and I can see that we have got a couple of questions here. I am going to …

Bowman: Can I just say quickly while you are looking at the questions, is that I think it is good to do things a bit understated you know. In the Middle East everything is big, you know, it is a Silicon oasis, as soon as you start calling things these silly names. It is probably why we have made it, right, because if you go to Silicon Valley, if you drive down University Avenue down Paulo Alta there is nothing exciting about that place. Everything is happening in the basements and the garages and it is understated, it is things happening but not like, here is a $2 billion building, now let us start to do something. It is like, it is the opposite and I think that is the learning for everywhere, I think that that has to be the same everywhere.

Tamara: We have a question here which actually is an interesting one and it is basically saying is it possible to have a local measure of success for start-ups and new innovations and they say that we consider Souq, Careem and ANGHAMI successful because either they were acquired or listed by an international company or exchange. Do we need to have a local measure of innovation tech success?

Ziad: I heard that a number of measures that are used in some countries, but I'm sure the rest of the panel, they are probably a lot more expert than I am in that but there is an innovation per capita measure I have heard about, how many companies and start-ups in the tech world per capita. There are some countries that do and fair a lot more than other countries and I also think that exit is one measure of success. Sometimes your company could completely fail but the alumni of that company could go on to create a lot more successful company, so the transfer of knowledge and experience and building that kind of unique knowledge in the start-up space in my opinion is very very important.

Bowman: You need to be very careful with KPIs, they are indoctrinated so, Sweden we have this as well, we count how many companies like Volvo 1. I have a company with me and friend now we have two companies. How are we going to count these? You exited it but all the investment came from Kleiner Perkins in the United States and other companies in the US has had a success for the region. How are we going to, we need to get below the level of innovation as some buzz word and really decide on the level of economic development? That is what Ziad said, you have to fail could be good because now you are ready to succeed the next time so that could be positive as long as you don't quit right.

Tamara: I think another measure I want to ask all those were great. To look at some how many start- ups have actually scaled because one in every five don't make it to the scaling stage. You know 50%25 of them don't go beyond the fifth year so if your market is not only enabling people to start a business is it enabling them to scale, to grow, to go international. That would be a sign as well that start-ups are succeeding. They are growing into new markets and that the eco-system supporting them and growing as well. Sean go ahead.

Sean: I look to follow on non-affiliated investment. That is kind of one of the key measures of validation of the success of the company. We have a lot of affiliated dollars in the region whether they are from university or Government or supported funds but when somebody gets an investment whether it is foreign or local that is unaffiliated to the origins of the ID. I think that is a tremendous measure of our success.

Bowman: That goes back to what I said that you have to, you have to get some success from the market not from your own family and friends so to speak.

Tamara: That's the validation basically.

Bowman: You can get money from your mother, I'm not sure if we can use that as a measure for success. We need to see someone. Someone who dislikes you wants to invest that would be the greatest…

Tamara: That's a good one. We have another question here as well. This one is asking what about the idea of creating a UAE Sovereign patent pool or patent fund. The purpose of these funds is to gather a pool of patents that can be deployed to help develop and grow strategic industries in a country, many countries have done this successfully to a degree for instance Korea, Japan and Canada. The kind of patent pools for like standard essential patents but I don't know is what is meant here in the question or I guess because you are a small enough market can you sort of create a patent pool. I guess you would have to do it with a specific knowledge clusters. Anyone want to take that question?

Bowman: I work with these issues on the SEP thing so I can take it here. I mean and also from being in Qatar and creating a Qatar patent office. The idea is why do you want this? Why do you need it?  Is there some type of freedom to operate issue to create something in the UAE? Who is patented in the UAE? I would propose that there is not much patents blocking anyone in the UAE and other countries in MENA so are you creating this in order to be able to go out and do things in other countries or are you trying to create some type of ability to innovate within your own area and that completely depends on what the situation is which I assume is relatively open right now because we have, I mean that is why the issue is right. We don't patent the region right so the upside of that is there is no patents to worry about if you do something in the region so.

Tamara: The problem is even if we do patent in the region I think the bigger issue is sort of access to sort of access to patent papers. That's a big deal here. I mean everything is published in Arabic, patent only published after they are granted which can take three to five years so it is not that accessible so even if you wanted to see who is patented in the region to figure out what the freedom to operate might look like. It's not that easy to do. You can't get a patent search done by the patent office either so these are some of the things that they want to work on here as well because you want to encourage people to use the patent system but then it is really hard to enforce your patent. If enforcement is hard then what incentive do you have as a company to take out an IP licence as well because you know you are not going to get sued so.

Bowman: That's the beauty right so in the end people complain oh there is too much litigation in the United States. In the UAE like we need more litigation.

Tamara: We need litigation.

Bowman: We need litigation. People are suing each other is a sign of a healthy system on some level.

Tala: There is a whole other debate about that and open innovation but I feel like that should be a whole other webinar because it is under discussion so we'll leave that to the next one hopefully.

Tamara: So those are the two questions we have actually. That's all. Is there any message that you guys want to say on this topic before we end the webinar? 

Bowman: Well I think that again if we just the focus of innovation can be different things right so for me that is the takeaway. You need to break it down below that. Is it market pull type innovation, business model innovation, are we talking about incremental innovation, are we talking about innovation to solve local problems or are talking about we want to become a leader and science and technology to solve. We are working on Nanotech and blockchain and all those things that we are going to be in an international competition, it's a global thing from day one. These are completely different environments and require different eco-systems, you know different challenges and so we need to breakdown below this idea that innovation and we get down to what are we talking about. This over here needs this, this over here needs this, this needs that, We need more nuanced and I can see that that is happening more bottom up like Ziad said, let people have the ability to go out and do things question so if I said you know in the middle east, can I use the mantra, move fast and break things or does that scare people…

Tala: I like it.

Bowman: This is a type of mind-set right? 

Sean: I love it and I think it is slowly building around the middle east. It is going to take quite a bit of time like anything else anywhere in the world to basically mature and developed but one things I strongly believe is we need to invest in our capital much more than we are doing now and in particular we need to invest in their mind-sets, the ability to accept failure, the ability and the willingness to try something new and the willingness to accept locally grown products I think those are in my opinion the most important catalysts to successfully persist.

Bowman: One thing you can do in relation to what Ziad did is to have session where people come and talk about their failures. You need more people to talk about their failures so that people realise that's not the end and to make everything normal.

Sean: And to be honest we think of our organisation as a very successful one. We went through a lot of failures to get to where we are and we failed multiple times. The models and technologies and products, it's our policies and that is how you improve. You learn.

Bowman: So you need to invite Ziad to talk about all the things you did, he can't say anything positive about himself only the negative.

Tamara: I do believe that is something that will take time, that cultural shift and mind-set that is it OK to fail, it is OK to risk something and it doesn't work out you can just pick yourself up again and try again. That will take time and maybe like Tala said maybe we do need a little bit of educational input from younger age as well to get people to think a little differently as well, and so with that, I can see that it is just turning 5:00pm. I don't see any more questions in our chat box.

Bowman: There was one about licencing. Maybe you could answer that.

Tala: While we get to the last one I just want to kind of add to the point that the guys mentioned earlier with the spirit of kind of embracing failure. I'm so glad to hear that because one of the things that we are doing at District 2020 is we are setting up the first living lab in the region and it is really a space to kind of allow people to keep reiterating and piloting ideas and embracing failure but doing that with all the stakeholders that we mentioned in the eco-system and I really think that this is really what we need to focus on as we move forward. It is embracing that failure, having this mind-set to feel comfortable to experiments and to do that with everybody on the table basically so I was really happy to hear that actually.

Tamara: So we have one question here I think they want to know a little bit more about tech transfer by licencing so I think what they mean is basically you know innovations that come out of research entities or universities, what challenges are there in terms of licencing that and I can just from my own personal experiences is that to licence technology in the region is definitely a challenge when you don't have an industry who is willing to take a chance on new technology and commercialise it as well so I think typically you end up looking at markets that are more established because it is easier to identify your customer and also there is more licencing interest. What would you say to that Sean?

Sean: I mean this amount of truth in that I think the challenges right now when we are talking to mature companies so not start off to medium sized companies that are selling a variety of products and services, they see in licencing as a distraction or takes away from their P&L and it is very because they don't, they'd rather say look there's a new sensor that we could have instead of bringing it on board and then having to invest the dollars to develop it into a product that we can incorporate into our system. We just buy something and I think that notion of the association of a lot of companies with ownership of intellectual assets so that they can then control and monitories them themselves to get back to the original point that you made Tamara. In the first decade of KAUST we got about 15 deals around IP and in the last 2½ years we have done about 100. The idea is the majority of those are going to be the start ups because they are the companies that are most able to on-board technology in order to create a product and then what we are seeing is if some of those companies are being acquired or being invested in by much more matured companies but they'll get there. I just closed a licenced deal earlier last week with a local medium sized company and they quite enjoyed the opportunity to work with us and to on-board a new product but it was lots of very experienced but it is going to happen. It is one of those things. It'll just take time.

Tamara: Are there particular cases that you would say sort of lend themselves towards licencing to a startup versus an established company.

Sean: It is closure to a product if it is ready made if there is less development work to be done we can much more easily licence it to a company. If there has to be development done and development not just of the technology into a product but also the product into an opportunity and sales and development of the market. We are more likely to see that through a start-up company because they've got the energy to do so.

Tamara: So I just want to thank you all for participating in this. I realise it is after 5.00pm. This one is really useful for me personally. I feel like I have learnt a lot from this discussion. I want to continue it but I'm conscious of the time so with that I just want to thank you all and if there are any questions that come through after I will make sure to sort of channel those through and yeah thank you so much for participating in this.

Tala: Thank you for having us.

Bowman: It's a pleasure.