Qatar University (QU) participated in Global Innovation Summit (GIS) 2019, which took place in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, recently.
Professor Mariam al-Maadeed, vice-president for Research & Graduate Studies at QU, represented the university and took part in the event.
The summit is organised annually by the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils (GFCC), of which QU is an active member since 2016.
The GFCC is a network of leaders and organisations from around the world committed to the implementation of competitiveness strategies to drive innovation, productivity and prosperity for their nations, regions and cities.
The GFCC convenes high-level leaders from business, government, academia, civil society and global think tanks for discussions on the state of global
competitiveness and ways to enhance innovation capacity worldwide.
In a statement, QU said it co-leads one of the GFCC initiatives together with University of Zurich on ‘Optimising Innovation Alliances,’ a joint policy taskforce and report that outlines best ways and emerging models for fostering innovation in universities in alliance with industry and government.
Qatar University president Dr Hassan al-Derham is currently playing a semi-leadership role with the GFCC University and Research Leadership Forum’s new initiatives on shaping the future of universities in light of the fourth industrial technological revolution, the statement noted.
The summit was held in the presence of Altay Kulginov, mayor of Nur-Sultan and host of the event, GFCC president Deborah Wince-Smith, GFCC chairman Charles Holliday Jr and other distinguished members, partners and sponsors.
On behalf of QU, Prof al-Maadeed presented ‘The Qatar University Case: Development of a National University Transformation Strategy for Impact and Competitiveness’. She gave a brief about the university and explained the new QU transformational strategy 2018-2022 and explained how it was inspired by Qatar National Vision 2030.
In this context, Prof al-Maadeed highlighted QU’s "innovative contributions" to Qatar’s mega initiatives such as some of the new technologies that have been deployed in preparing for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Prof al-Maadeed participated in several sessions, including a panel discussion titled, ‘Industries in Transformation — Building New Industries and Boosting Productivity in Today’s Economy’, and a University and Research Leadership Forum workshop that discussed the future of universities in light of the fourth industrial revolution, called University 4.0.
The University 4.0 is a new GFCC initiative bringing collective efforts from senior university leaders across the globe together with senior research and development, industry and strategy leaders in order to conceptualise and explore pathways for emergence and new models of universities shaping future industry 4.0, society 4.0 and economy 4.0.
Prof al-Maadeed brought perspectives from Qatar, QU and the QU transformation strategy on this emerging and critical topic for universities and higher education transformation.
Further, Prof al-Maadeed had the opportunity to meet with Qatar's ambassador to Kazakhstan, Ahmed Ali al-Tamimi, as well as senior officials from different Kazakh universities in order to initiate potential collaborations between them and QU.
