On Monday, May 21st, Dr. Ahmed Elmagarmid, Director of the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), spoke at the Center for 21st Century Universities on the challenges and opportunities facing the QCRI as it helps Qatar become a leader in Arabic language technologies and in key areas vital to Qatar's transition from a carbon fuel to a knowledge-based economy. While Qatar’s oil and natural gas reserves have brought economic prosperity to the region, reliance on nonrenewable resources for economic prosperity is not likely to be sustainable in the long term. In order to diversify, Qatar has developed the Qatar National Vision 2030, which includes a plan to establish Qatar as a knowledge economy.

Dr. Elmagarmid recounted the establishment of the National Vision, which enlisted the help of domestic and expatriate scholars, including Elmagramid himself, to establish the foundation of this new knowledge economy. Subsequently, the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (Qatar Foundation) was established with the goal of unlocking the human potential in Qatar to improve life both domestically and throughout the Arab region. Prior to this initiative, individuals or small groups of researchers were doing scholarly research in Qatar without any significant integrative large-scale research initiatives. In an attempt to create the desired knowledge economy, the Qatar Foundation established large, government-sponsored research centers including the Qatar Computing Research Institute. QCRI focuses on research areas that could have the significant impact in the region including Arab-language technologies, robotics, advanced technology, data management, social computing, and cloud computing.  Projects being undertaken by QCRI include Arabic speech recognition, creating and disseminating Arab-language content on the web and social media analysis.

The Qatar Foundation also oversees other initiatives such as the Qatari Environment and Energy Institute that plans to conduct research in energy production, and the Qatari Biomedical Research Institute which includes the Sidra hospital, scheduled to open at the end of the year, designed to world-class academic medical center standards. Initially it will specialize in women and children, and provide advanced care for severe medical conditions in the region.

A consequence of these sorts of international intellectual collaborations has been to help establish Qatar as a leader in higher education initiatives. Qatar’s capitol, Doha, boasts the largest number of American colleges campuses outside the United States. Schools like Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and Georgetown have established satellite campuses in and around Doha. In addition, the international news agency, Al-Jazeera, is headquartered in Doha and leverages the social media research coming out of QCRI to report on events as they occurring in regions like Syria that have prohibited journalists reproting within the country.

It has been argued that these intellectual and political developments in Qatar are part of a larger movement toward geopolitical cosmopolitanism as Qatar continues to grow into an economic, and intellectual leader in the Middle East. Qatar’s economic and intellectual prosperity represent an intriguing example of institutional innovation that could serve as a model for entire Arab region.