Silicon Wafers and Semiconductors: A New Black Gold for Abu Dhabi?

The leadership of the United Arab Emirates considers economic diversification a necessity in order to protect the country’s economy from oil-price fluctuations and to maintain prosperity. Along those lines, a government-owned investment vehicle is trying to encourage growth and innovation in knowledge-based industries in such areas as aerospace, healthcare, information and communications technology, and renewable energy. One of the goals — promoting a local semiconductor industry — is proving to be especially challenging.

Read the full analysis on Arabic Knowledge@Wharton by Nettie Downs, Firas Kiyasseh and Levi Quaintance, members of the Lauder Class of 2014

Arabic Knowledge@Wharton And Wamda Announce Content Partnership

Announcing a partnership that will reach thousands of readers in the Middle East and North Africa, Wamda and Arabic Knowledge@Wharton, the online journal of The Wharton School, will freely offer tailored content to entrepreneurs directly from the world’s leading business school.

Readers will be able to access a knowledge base that includes interviews with Wharton faculty and exclusive conversations with industry leaders. Anyone seeking guidance on the MENA region will benefit from featured analyses of regional trends, success stories, and articles on best practices.

Additionally, Wamda, the platform that empowers entrepreneurs through investment, content and programs, and Arabic Knowledge@Wharton will jointly author reports for their specialized audience, which counts senior executives and leaders from government, academia and the media. Collectively, Wamda and Arabic Knowledge@Wharton reach over 150,000 people monthly in the region, offering content both in English and Arabic.

“The Middle East is fast developing into a hub for the emerging global economy,” said Bulent Gultekin, associate professor of finance at the Wharton School, and Academic Director of the Wharton Center@CERT, Abu Dhabi. “Wharton is very interested in understanding the region’s growth and its future economic roles.”

To further support entrepreneurs, Wamda and Arabic Knowledge@Wharton will jointly host online interactive sessions with Wharton faculty and experts and Arabic Knowledge@Wharton will provide Wamda members with more access to seasoned advice at select events.

“This partnership is a natural extension of Wamda and Wharton’s shared belief in leveraging the web to inspire and empower entrepreneurs throughout the MENA region,” said Habib Haddad, CEO of Wamda.

The partnership with Wamda extends Wharton’s presence in the Middle East. The business school entered into an agreement with the Higher Colleges of Technology and the Center of Excellence for Applied Research & Training (CERT) in the United Arab Emirates, opening the Wharton Center@CERT, Abu Dhabi in 2010.

The center acts as a hub for the MENA Region where the Wharton School conducts research, hosts seminars and events for UAE-based and regional business and management executives, and publishes Arabic Knowledge@Wharton.

“The readership of Arabic Knowledge@Wharton is spread across the globe,” said Pankaj Paul, managing editor of Arabic Knowledge@Wharton and general manager of the Wharton Center@CERT, Abu Dhabi. “It demonstrates the great interest people have in understanding the role the Middle East plays in the global economy. Our partnership with Wamda will allow us to reach an even broader audience and to better cover the topics and issues that matter to them.”

Wharton Alum’s Controversial Business Strategy: Failure is Key

Brilliant Mistakes is one of many business strategy books; however, what sets author and businessman Paul Schoemaker‘s strategy for business success apart is his controversial support of failure.

Some cultures and a number of corporate environments have stigmatized the very concept of failing. Schoemaker stresses the importance of learning from mistakes — to learn, he says, errors must be committed.

Schoemaker received his MBA and Ph.D. from the Wharton School. He currently continues to provide academic work for his Alma matter, in addition to running Decision Strategies International, Inc.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/wXKaNe

Women’s Leadership a Wharton Priority

Adisue Ayu, Women's World Banking microfinance client

The Wharton School hosted the third annual Women’s World Banking (WWB) Advanced Leadership Program. The event has a particular interest in aiding a certain portion of microfinance borrowers- the 8 in 10 that are women. The WWB’s partnership with Wharton once again demonstrates the  business school’s commitment to create opportunities for women.

The event was held November 28th through December 2nd for the purpose of exploring business and leadership practices with experts from international microfinance institutions (MFIs).

“WWB has partnered with Wharton to engage leaders of the best MFIs worldwide to wrestle with the tough questions facing the industry, with the ultimate goal of influencing the future of microfinance,” says Elizabeth Lynch, Manager, Center for Microfinance Leadership at WWB.

Symposiums conducted by Wharton faculty and collaborative workshops on realistic scenarios were used as platforms to investigate innovative solutions to the world’s microfinance issues.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/sUpLlX 

Wharton Continues Expanding Educational Opportunities Worldwide

The Wharton School‘s latest global venture, an Accelerated Development Program in India, commenced early in October with plans to be fully functioning by January 2012. This innovative business certificate program was created to serve the “current needs of high-potential business leaders in India,” but the business school plans to literally broaden the program’s horizons.

“We will learn from our delivery of this program [in India] how we can do it in China … and in other locations,” said Wharton Vice Dean Jason Wingard. He went on to say that the target countries are those with emerging markets, for example, Brazil.

However, lacking definitive plans, further expansion of the program will have to be based on the school’s historical relations with China and the alumni based there.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/sctnAR 

Wharton’s Stuart Diamond: Arab Spring has provided little value for people

When protestors first took to the streets across the Middle East early this year, the world watched as thousands of Arabs demanded an end to governments that were corrupt and self-serving. Dubbed the Arab Spring, it was a movement propelled by technology, imbued with optimism for change, and aiming to create a more equitable economy.

After the initial blush with relatively peaceful demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, the social revolution has led to strife rather than reform, as Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt have all witnessed bloody protests, while Syria and Libya have been plunged into all-out civil war. Much of this violent turn of events, says Wharton’s Stuart Diamond, is because of dashed expectations.

“Entrepreneurs know that the idea is just the start; without building out an enterprise, no value is created,” says Diamond, who teaches negotiation courses at Wharton, and is a Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author of Getting More: How To Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World. “This is the problem with the Arab Spring. Now that many have more power, they actually have to do the hard work to build out a different sort of economy.”

Another failing of the movement is the emphasis on past grievances — putting Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak on trial, Diamond says, is the wrong way to start rebuilding Egypt. “Negotiate with him on what he and others in his circle will provide,” he suggests. “Leave them with something to get them to agree. Now that would better help in building a new Egypt than a trial of a sick old man.”

For those challenging leadership, such as protestors in Syria, the best thing would be to avoid confrontation, he adds. “If Syrian protestors stop the violence, all the negative focus will be on the existing government, which will not be able to withstand the continuing criticism. The goal of the protestors now should be to document everything and keep telling the world.”

Diamond adds that the situation in Libya, “is perhaps the best example today of the stupidity of not negotiating … Libya will never be able to provide a better life for its citizens until the war stops. And the quickest way to do that is negotiate with Qaddafi.”

Read the story here on Arabic Knowledge@Wharton

Previously:  Stuart Diamond on Middle East Reform: Organize, Start Small, Replicate and Negotiate

Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor, now heading awareness foundation — and heading to Wharton

Manasvi Koul was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the disease quickly progressed. When no donors could be found, she had to endure the painful process of providing stem cells for her treatment from her own body.

Koul was not expected to improve, but she did. She then found the strength to  launch LIVEbeyond, which aims to raise awareness about bone marrow transplants, and the need for more donors from ethnic communities.

In addition to her efforts, she managed to win several academic awards. Koul, now 18, enters the Wharton School this fall.

“If you spend all your time worrying about how much time you have left, you’re wasting it,” Koul told The Charlotte Observer. “I won’t waste my time. I’ll make the most of my opportunities to learn, and to help others.”

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/qmGGdf 

Food security concerns lurk amid Arab region’s unrest

Before the tumult of the Arab Spring, one of the biggest challenges to the rule of then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was a lack of bread. In the summer of 2008, long queues and short tempers over bread shortages were enough that the army was called in to bake and distribute loaves to Egypt’s poorest.

Egypt’s bread protests were soon forgotten. But there now is a growing consensus among analysts and policymakers that rising food costs and food shortages are contributing to the region’s unrest. In a new briefing by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, researchers detail some aspects of the Middle East’s food security concerns, and how they relate to its ongoing turmoil.

“People’s satisfaction with their standard of living has deteriorated in most Arab countries in recent years, especially in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and other countries with civil disobedience,” noted the authors of the brief, Economics of the Arab Awakening: From Revolution to Transformation and Food Security, which included all of the Arab countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Food security has deteriorated in most Arab countries, the authors noted, due to high food-price inflation. For instance in Egypt, according to the World Bank, year-on food inflation in February was at 19%. “The proportion of people without enough money to buy food increased or remained unchanged in all but one of 12 countries examined,” the IFPRI brief noted. “Egypt and Sudan saw particularly large increases.”

Even in oil-rich Gulf countries, concerns over food price inflation have resulted in various government actions, including planning food reserves and forcing retailers to heavily discount certain basic foodstuffs. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the federal government has gone further, asking food retailers to agree to a six-month price freeze on certain items, while conducting store inspections to ensure prices do not increase in the month of Ramadan, when Muslim shoppers tend to buy more groceries. Prices for edible oil, sugars and rices last year in the UAE rose by 50%, according to local media reports.

These food security concerns have also led some Gulf countries to purchase farmlands in other countries for their own food production needs. The UAE has become one of the top purchasers of global farmland, according to IFPRI, while Saudi Arabia has made a number of farmland purchases in Africa. Government officials say that with direct access to food crops, they can save in import spending.

Stephen J. Kobrin, William H. Wurster Professor of Multinational Management at Wharton, says such land purchases risk reviving a colonial system in which large tracts are controlled by overseas interests that hire many of their own people, reducing the economic benefits to the host country. “The big question is, are you developing local skills or just creating an outpost of the investor country?” Kobrin says.

And more immediate, easier solutions for Arab countries to reduce import spending costs are available, according to an analysis by the World Bank, including improving logistics efficiency, and using risk-management tools to reduce exposure to price volatility and shocks.

The IFPRI brief also questions some of the measures Arab countries have taken in the wake of the unrest, such as raising civil employee salaries and lowering import tariffs. “Most, if not all, of these ‘firefighting’ measures were used by Arab governments before,” the brief notes. “These popular but costly responses have been inefficient in stimu­lating sustainable growth and poverty reduc­tion. “

The authors recommend that Arab governments facing food security issues should seek to improve their “trade agreements, logistics, and infrastructure, as well as support for the agriculture sector in countries with agri­cultural potential. “

“While it is beyond this brief’s scope to determine whether living standards and food security played a large role in triggering the revolutions, results clearly show that in most Arab countries both indicators have worsened.”

Earlier: Middle East’s Investments in African Farmlands Are Rooted in Food Security Fears

Read the report here:  http://bit.ly/jkN0kC

Wharton wins twice in EMFD leadership case writing competition

The Wharton School was twice honored at this year’s Excellence in Practice Awards, given by Brussels-based business school accreditation body, the European Foundation for Management Development.

There were 32 submissions for the competition’s five prizes, each worth €2000. Wharton executive education staff members Deb Giffen and Eric Weiner were involved in the winning studies; Giffen contributed to a study on talent development at Philips, and Weiner contributed towards a study of organizational development at The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/l9n3Ld