Sami Mahroum is Director of the Innovation & Policy Initiative at INSEAD and a member of the WEF Regional Strategy Group for the Middle East and North Africa. He is the author of Black Swan Start-ups: Understanding the Rise of Successful Technology Business in Unlikely Places.
Inventors from predominantly Muslim countries are vital to US innovation. President Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban, if enacted in whole or part, would do more than cheapen the American dream: it w… read more
A twofold problem has emerged in science worldwide: select academic journals have become disproportionately influential, and they have placed a premium on empirical research. As scientists' research p… read more
OPEC succeeded in protecting its members’ shared interests that they could not protect individually, and it shows that when a market has structural distortions, political tools and collective action c… read more
The extraordinarily high proportion of foreign labor in the Gulf states is often considered problematic, because it threatens local cultures and national identities, holds down wages, and impedes the … read more
More than a dozen startups in the Middle East and North Africa now have estimated valuations above $100 million, and Souq.com, a 3,000-employee company founded in 2005, is poised to be the region’s fi… read more
Rising literacy rates and rapid advances in communication technology have stirred the Middle East into a maelstrom of competing cultural narratives. Unless Arab and Muslim societies revitalize their h… read more
As machines become smarter, the mutually reinforcing relationship between technological progress and human prosperity seems to be growing weaker. But some countries seem to have figured out how to sus… read more
It is facile to frame the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo as an attack on freedom of expression. Are we supposed to be surprised that a global terror organization known for its brutal disregard for hum… read more
The relationships that are formed at elite universities are among the most influential in the world. As long as low-income countries are excluded from these social circles, they will remain unable to … read more
