Saeed Arida ~ Accelerating Innovate Syria @ MIT

I'm very pleased to have interviewed Saeed Arida of Innovate Syria on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight. Saeed is a PhD Candidate in Design & Computation in Architecture at MIT and has spearheaded the Innovate Syria initiative together with a couple dozen colleagues and advisors for this past year. I first wrote about Innovate Syria back in May when we were honored with a visit by Syrian Ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha. Since then Saeed and team have advanced the cause by creating a website, rallying the extended network of entrepreneurs and patrons, and further planning the initial innovation center in Damascus, capital city of Syria and one of the oldest continuous conurbations on Earth. They have very bold goals...

"The project aims at transforming the Syrian Economy into an Innovation Economy by building a series of innovation centers in Syria’s major cities. Each of these centers will be highly specific to its environment by capitalizing on existing industries and human capital. These centers will effectively contribute to modernizing the country while educating a future generation of critical thinkers and innovative entrepreneurs who can make a difference in their local cultures."

This is most excellent and both a very compelling idea for Syria and for our Planet. We urgently need to Innovate Earth!