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Tribune News Network
Doha
KEY stakeholders from academia, industry, business and government in Qatar joined together to play their part in defining the future path for the nation's research and development ecosystem, as the Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference 2018 (ARC'18) concluded on Tuesday.
The seventh edition of ARC organised by Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D) was held over two days at Qatar National Convention Centre under the theme 'R&D: Focusing On Priorities, Delivering Impact', with thousands of local and international delegates participating in expert-led sessions on research, innovation, technology, and their role in building a sustainable, diversified and globally-competitive economy.
On the second day of the conference, a series of interactive and in-depth workshops enabled hundreds of R&D stakeholders from all sectors in Qatar, and members of the global R&D community, to contribute to launching the process of updating the Qatar National Research Strategy (QNRS), the overarching framework for Qatar's research objectives.
In the opening day-two plenary session, titled 'Delivering Impactful Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy', insightful keynote presentations provided multinational perspectives on how research strategies can bring the greatest benefit to society, engage stakeholders, overcome challenges and pave the way for impact.
Speakers were Professor Mariam al Ali al Maadeed, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, Qatar University; Professor Low Teck Seng, CEO, National Research Foundation, Singapore; Dr Orkun Hasekiof1'f0lu, Vice-President, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (T'dcB'ddTAK); and Datuk Dr Mohd Yusoff Sulaiman, President and CEO, Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT), with the session moderated by Dr Frans Van Den Boom, Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Evaluation, QF R&D.
In the closing plenary session of ARCf0'18, topics explored and discussed in the workshops were summarized and channelled into preliminary recommendations for the next steps in updating the QNRS.
The conference also provided a window into the disruptive technologies that have the potential to help reshape industries, ways of working and lives, as 16 global startups exhibited their game-changing ideas and inventions under the ARC'18 Innovation Track. The 'International Startups Presentations' showcased rapidly emerging technologies in a range of fields, including healthcare, finance, robotics, food and water security, waste management and renewable energy.
These presentations followed 'The Future Is Now', a new event for the Middle East that was presented on the first day of ARC'18 by Qatar Science & Technology Park and Singularity University, and which proved popular with delegates as some of SU's leading speakers provided expert insights into the technologies of tomorrow.
During ARC'18, 270 poster presentations demonstrating the extent and depth of the research activity taking place across Qatar were exhibited to delegates under the Researchers Track, which also saw 55 oral presentations of research projects focusing on areas under the four QNRS pillars on the opening day of the conference. All projects were selected from a total of about 1,000 scientific abstracts submitted ahead of ARC'18.
