Al Arabiya English Global Discussions | Science and Sensibility
Early this month I had the privelage of moderating a session with our Mohammed Bin Rashed Space Center friends at the World Government Summit where we tackled issues related to the Arab world’s contribution to the sciences.
This inspired us to take things one step further, we invited Beirut-based Ahmad Moghrabi to Dubai – a longtime science editor for pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat – who was also a part of the World Government Summit session.
On Monday, in a session titled “Science and Sensibility: A look at the ‘lagging’ Arab role in science”, Ahmad reiterated that the Arab world is lagging in science and that we fail to utilize resources when it is right infront of us.
“We [Arabs] are behind ourselves in the sense that in the past centuries, we were much more advanced than we are now, and this is difficult to admit,” Dr. Moghrabi said in the roundtable discussion.
“Even when we have relations with countries that produce science, we are not utilizing these relations and access to their knowledge in a way that makes us produce science ourselves.”
Omran Anwar Sharaf, team leader of the Emirates Mars Mission, was also present in the session. “Sustainable economic development is linked to proper scientific and technological advancement in the region,” he said adding to Ahmad’s comments.
One of the interesting topics that piqued everyone’s interest in the session was that of ‘space’.
Space advancement has now become one of the most sought after scientific fields in the Arab world.
However, Ibrahim al Qasim, member of the MBRSC team, believes that though crowded, there’s enough room for people to develop and advance in science, “space is crowded depending on what you want to do.”
Everyone also agreed that training children to work on science at a very young age will help countries create, develop and launch inventions and technology.
We have the science, but do we have the sensibility to move forward? Let us not be users, let’s be creators!
To watch the session:
