Originally a society founded in the University of Cambridge, the Arab Innovation Network [AIN] is the first non-profit youth driven innovation network focused on the Arab region. AIN acts as a platform for Arab youth to explore problems and develop solutions for major regional challenges in entrepreneurship, environment, health, and information and communication technology.

Alongside oil and gas, the Arab countries’ major export is human capital. The Arab Knowledge report (2009) highlights that the region’s performance in the innovation pillar index is the lowest in the Arab knowledge status, mainly due to the lack of funding, acknowledgement and incentives, and ongoing obstacles to protecting patents and launching products. Here is where AIN plays to fill these voids by incentivising the Arab youth towards innovation through the collaboration of universities, companies and not-for-profits to exploit knowledge towards meeting the region’s challenges and market needs.

Although it is our long-term vision to promote the establishment of a pan-Arab technology and innovation centre, our current mission is to create the network and atmosphere conducive to the creation of such a centre through a series of annual conferences that include: a forum where academic and industrial thinkers will exchange ideas and practices in innovation promotion and management, a youth competition focused on generating ideas or inventions to meeting current market needs, and finally an exhibition of current as well as previous findings that earned little recognition in the past. To that end, we need to pool the skills and identify the needs for the market periodically, and inspire and motivate innovation in industry and academia.

Apart from being a registered society at the University of Cambridge, AIN is not affiliated to any government, religion or political party. It is an independent non-profit organisation reliant on donations to sustain its activities.

AIN, a view of the future!

text provided by – http://www.arabinnovation.net

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