I work in the intellectual property field and it is amazing the LACK of research and submissions for patents coming from the Middle East. Those that do tend to be work done in behalf of Western corporations and entities.

Nanotechnology is an area that I am familiar with, as an electrical engineer, but not an area I work in myself. The real test will be to see how they get up and running, what kind of talent they can recruit, put out and what they can put forth in the next few years.

The number, 30 million riyals might sound nice, but I think that works out to less than ten million US dollars. When one notes that a fresh university graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in the area here in the US can ask for $70,000 a year, plus signing bonus and moving incentives, the $10 million figure starts to look a lot less impressive.

A seasoned professional in the area can easily command $150,000 to $250,000 year a year, plus all of the bonuses. Getting these types of people to Saudi might cost even more than that, although the “tax free” nature of the salary would help.

I dont know if this will be like other places in the Gulf where much cheaper African and Indo-Paki engineers do most of the work with a few Westerners hired as managers. That would certainly save some money, but one wonders what they will do for the quality of work coming out of the institute.

I’d like to visit this place sometime in the future.

Gender equality is another issue and an important one. It’s not what this piece was about though.

I’m not quick to assign the term ‘Saudi-basher’. I use it when someone ramps up negativity solely for the sake of being negative, as did this piece. Saudi Arabia has lots of things to be negative about. The desire to keep up with developing technology is not one of them.

Feigning shock and horror that Saudi Arabia wants to enter the nanotech world can only be seen as ‘Saudi bashing,’ something all too prevalent among certain blogs.

John:
I frequently attend scientific meetings so it is not “Saudi bashing” for me to legitimately ask how they plan to interact with female scientists all over the world? They want to recruit Nobel laureates–would that only be male Nobel laureates? Should women in science (like me at one time), accept being asked to cover-up or be told not to shake hands or speak out of turn because we must not be seen as “Saudi bashers”?

This isn’t about bashing anyone. It’s about me stating I will be damned if I give up a single right or privilege because it does not suit someone else’s world view. I earned my rights the hard way and I am not going to give an inch of ground in the name of cultural sensitivity.

Crossroads Arabia on the Saudis entering the field of nano-technology.