Strange but true….I know of a friend (classical opera singer) stuck in NYC without work since she is unable to get the required visa. (Source: The Economist)

Beauty and the Geek

Jun 19th 2008 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

A new bill proposes more visas be allocated to fashion models

IT’S not often that fashion models are paired with IT workers, except in the lurid fantasies of computer geeks. But because of a decision made back in 1990 they must compete for the same over-subscribed H-1B, a temporary work visa for specialised occupations. Until 2004, when the government lowered the cap on the number of H-1Bs it issued, it didn’t matter so much. But now demand has far outstripped the limited number of visas available, and many foreign models are being denied the chance to sashay down America’s catwalks.

Anthony Weiner, a New York congressman, wants to fix this tragic glitch. He has proposed a bill amending the rules so that the models will be reclassified into their own special immigration category. This would free up more visas for the nerds; and it would allow 1,000 models to strut their stuff in America each year, compared with just 349 in 2007, half the annual number admitted between 2000 and 2005.

Only 65,000 H-1B visas are awarded annually and they get snapped up within days of becoming available, most of them going to tech workers. Companies like Infosys and Microsoft were among the top H-1B users in 2007. But even these companies are being constrained. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, testified to a Senate committee last year that the only way to solve the “critical shortage of scientific talent” was to open up the country’s doors.

Steve King, an Iowa congressman, thinks the bill should be called the “Ugly American Act” because it implies there are not enough beautiful people in the United States. But Mr Weiner, a bachelor accused by the tabloids and his fellow politicians of using the visa issue to get himself a glamorous date, says he’s only thinking of New York’s economy, which is heavily involved in the fashion industry.

The business generates thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue: the average photo-shoot costs about $100,000. If a foreign model is denied entry, he says, the production is likely to be lost to other countries. New York’s skyline or California’s hills can be easily photoshopped in later. This “beauty drain”, as the newspaper Politico calls it, affects make-up artists, stylists and photographers as well as media companies and advertising agencies.

The visas for models bill is still far from becoming reality, and comprehensive immigration reform is a distant dream. Luckily though, supermodels like Gisele Bündchen are in the clear. They are eligible for O-1 visas, given to those with “extraordinary ability,” like Nobel laureates.

A US professor of Mathematics (and former Field’s Medal winner - David Mumford) has decided to donate his prize money from a prestigious Israeli award to Bir Zeit University in Palestine. I am struck by the depth of Prof. Mumford’s comments regarding his otherwise simple act of philanthropy. It was not about trying to solve a problem, nor even about trying to help build peace in the world - it was about realizing what brought success to him and then using his prize money to make those factors more available to scientists in an otherwise besieged part of the world. Brilliant.

I was just telling a friend this weekend that i want to support world class higher education in the developing parts of the world, and especially in Pakistan and Palestine. I truly believe that higher education, especially in the sciences, can enlighten, emancipate, encourage, and motivate people like no other thing. Education brings confidence and an ability to start rationalizing situations and problems so at least a solution can be imagined, if not immediately implemented. Prof. Mumford is right: Education brings hope. And that part of the world really needs hope.

—

U.S. prof. gives Israeli prize money to Palestinian university
By Ofri Ilani
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/986898.html

The American mathematician David Mumford, co-winner of the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics, announced upon receiving the award yesterday that he will donate the money to Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, and to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.

“I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive,” Mumford told Haaretz. “I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that.”
The Wolf Foundation awards prizes of $100,000 each year “to outstanding scientists and artists for achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among peoples,” its web site says. It is considered one of the most prestigious international honors in mathematics.

Mumford, professor emeritus at Brown University and Harvard University, shared this year’s prize with Pierre Deligne and Phillip Griffiths of Princeton University. According to the Wolf Foundation, he was recognized for his “work on algebraic surfaces; on geometric invariant theory; and for laying the foundations of the modern algebraic theory of the moduli space of curves and theta functions.”

Mumford, who received the prize from President Shimon Peres in the Knesset, said he has already contacted Bir Zeit University and Gisha, and they have agreed to accept his donation. “The achievements I accomplished in mathematics were made possible thanks to my being able to move freely and exchange ideas with other scholars,” he said. “It would not have been possible without an international consensus on an exchange of ideas. Mathematics works best when people can move and get together. That’s its elixir of life. But the people of occupied
Palestine don’t have an opportunity to do that. The school system is fighting for its life, and mobility is very limited.”

“When I visited Israel in 1995, there was a feeling of hope, but that is not the situation today,” he added. “Education for people in the occupied territories gives them a future. The alternative is chaos.” He said his decision was not aimed at Israel. “I have tremendous regard for Israel, which is without a doubt a major force in the mathematics world. But unfortunately, the Palestinians cannot take part in this prosperity.”

Finally Bill Aulet takes the leap and writes about Water. He is both knowledgeable and spends a lot of time thinking about these issues…so when he writes, I pay attention. Click here for what I wrote on water a few months ago.

My comment to Bill:

I was hoping somebody would write on water. Thanks. While the average were running after nanotech/biotech deals 5-8 years ago, the cunning were starting to see environmental tech on the horizon. Now that the average are running after energy deals, the smart should be thinking about water.

I don’t mean any offense to those in the industry, but you are dead-on that the decision makers in the water business are slow, relatively non-techie, and risk-averse. Having worked in the next slowest industry, i.e. automotive, I can imagine how hard it is to sell into it. But is there a way to approach the customers directly who would be more willing to pay than the middle-man thinks? I can tell you my family in urban Pakistan would pay a lot more for clean water (and are more used to it) than an average American.

It is interesting that some of the issues faced by water innovators parallel those in energy: (a) geographical distribution of markets, (b) centralized vs distributed systems, (c) scalability issues, (d) mismatch between rhetoric and action at governmental level, and (e) lack of entrepreneurs/investors who are willing to stick with long-term endeavors.

I agree with your comment above that the water-energy nexus could be great for both. Energy companies could end up investing in water innovations while water companies would look for cheaper energy sources. I think we need to take energy and water technologies to regions where they are needed most to develop them fast and cost effectively, i.e. developing countries in Asia, Africa etc. And lets find long term investors (maybe the Middle East investors fit the bill) who are less scared of playing with commodities in such markets.

The Next Big Thing in Energy Innovation and Investing? Let’s Talk Water

Bill Aulet 5/20/08

Energy innovation and investing are exploding right now. Technological breakthroughs are seen as perhaps the greatest hope to solving our dire energy challenge. However, what is often overlooked is the link between finding or creating new sources of energy and the effects on food and water.

Indeed, if you think of energy as a coin, the flip side is water and food. The scary thing is that food and water are both lower on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs—i.e., they are more fundamental to human survival. Yet, the current rush to create new sources of energy—including “clean” energy—may have potentially disastrous tradeoffs on our food and water supplies. Going forward, trading off energy creation for water—meaning creating new sources of energy that depend on heavy use of water, as many do—will be less and less acceptable. That’s why the most exciting opportunities in energy entrepreneurship and investment lie in strategies that create more water or energy without adversely affecting the other. Xconomy for more…

Dedicated to my Tango-dancing professor friend… Keep it up, my man!

Now this just totally cracks me up….except that it also shows how people of Karachi (Pakistan) take the idea of livin’ on the edge just a tad bit too far. This is dangerous, not just for the 4 people on the bike, but also for others. Mind you, this is not kids playing around in an isolated alley. This is on a major road in the middle of very busy city traffic. Unbelievable.

Source: Karachi Metroblog

Apalling…..When something like this happens, we all suffer. Americans, Jews, Muslims, Christians…Everyone.

From The New York Times

April 28, 2008

Battle in Brooklyn | A Principal’s Rise and Fall

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and taunted an Arabic teacher by calling her a “terrorist,” staff members and students said in interviews.

The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.

“It’s a battle that’s really just begun,” said Daniel Pipes, who directs a conservative research group, the Middle East Forum, and helped lead the charge against Ms. Almontaser and the school.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, critics of radical Islam focused largely on terrorism, scrutinizing Muslim-American charities or asserting links between Muslim organizations and violent groups like Hamas. But as the authorities have stepped up the war on terror, those critics have shifted their gaze to a new frontier, what they describe as law-abiding Muslim-Americans who are imposing their religious values in the public domain.

Mr. Pipes and others reel off a list of examples: Muslim cabdrivers in Minneapolis who have refused to take passengers carrying liquor; municipal pools and a gym at Harvard that have adopted female-only hours to accommodate Muslim women; candidates for office who are suspected of supporting political Islam; and banks that are offering financial products compliant with sharia, the Islamic code of law.

The danger, Mr. Pipes says, is that the United States stands to become another England or France, a place where Muslims are balkanized and ultimately threaten to impose sharia.

“It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia,” Mr. Pipes said. “It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam.”

Mr. Pipes refers to this new enemy as the “lawful Islamists.”

They are carrying out a “soft jihad,” said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York and a vocal opponent of the Khalil Gibran school.

Muslim leaders, academics and others see the drive against the school as the latest in a series of discriminatory attacks intended to distort the truth and play on Americans’ fear of terrorism. They say the campaign is also part of a wider effort to silence critics of Washington’s policy on Israel and the Middle East.

“This is a political, ideological agenda,” said John Esposito, a professor of international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University who has been a focus of Mr. Pipes’s scrutiny. “It’s an agenda to paint Islam, not just extremists, as a major problem.”

That portrait, Muslim and Arab advocates contend, is rife with a bias that would never be tolerated were it directed at other ethnic or religious groups. And if Ms. Almontaser’s story is any indication, they say, the message of her critics wields great power.

Ms. Almontaser watched city officials and some of her closest Jewish allies distance themselves from her as the controversy reached its peak. She was ultimately felled by an article in The New York Post that said she had “downplayed the significance” of T-shirts bearing the slogan “Intifada NYC.”

Last month, federal judges issued a ruling — related to a lawsuit brought by Ms. Almontaser to regain her job — stating that her words were “inaccurately reported by The Post and then misconstrued by the press.”

While city officials and the Education Department declined to comment about Ms. Almontaser because of the lawsuit, a lawyer for the city said she had not been forced to resign.

In her first interview since stepping down, Ms. Almontaser said that education officials had pressured her to speak to The Post and had monitored the conversation. After the article was published, she said, the department issued a written apology in her name, without her approval.

“I kept saying I wanted to set the record straight,” said Ms. Almontaser, 40. “And they kept telling me, ‘You can’t undo what was done.’ ”

A Call to Lead

In April 2005, Debbie Almontaser got a telephone call that would change her life. The man on the line, Adam Rubin, worked for a nonprofit organization, New Visions for Public Schools. He was exploring whether to help the city create a public school that would teach Arabic. The group already had seed money — a $400,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — but needed the right person to help lead the venture.

Everywhere Mr. Rubin went — from the mayor’s office to a falafel stand in Brooklyn — people mentioned Ms. Almontaser. She was a teacher, a native Arabic speaker and arguably the city’s most visible Arab-American woman.

After 9/11, Education Department officials had enlisted Ms. Almontaser to hold workshops on cultural sensitivity for schoolchildren. She spread the message that Islam was a peaceful religion. She told of how her own son had served as a National Guardsman in the clearing effort at ground zero. She was soon attending interfaith seminars, befriending rabbis and priests. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg honored her publicly. She became a ready commentator for the media, prompting some Muslims to joke that she was the city’s “talking hijabi.”

In fact, it had taken a long time for Ms. Almontaser to embrace the hijab, or head scarf. Born in Yemen, she was 3 when she moved with her family to Buffalo. Her parents encouraged her to blend in. She called herself Debbie rather than Dhabah, her given name. She began wearing a veil in her 20s, as a Brooklyn mother whose life revolved around PTA meetings and Boy Scout trips. She took to riding on the back of her husband’s motorcycle, her head scarf tucked beneath a black helmet. She got used to the stares and learned to be unapologetic.

In the months following the Sept. 11 attacks, she offered other Muslim women the lessons she had learned: “The only way to claim this as your country is to continue on with your life here,” she recalled telling them.

For years, Ms. Almontaser had hoped to become a principal. But soon after joining hands with New Visions, she faced her first challenge. To administer the Gates grant, the school needed a community partner. Two groups wanted the job: a secular Arab-American social services agency and a Muslim-led organization that runs Al-Noor School, a private Islamic establishment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Ms. Almontaser said she tried to remain neutral as discord erupted between the two groups. Quietly, though, she worried that if an organization linked to a private Islamic school took the lead, the city would never approve the project, despite the group’s pledge to keep religion out of the curriculum.

Ultimately, a steering committee led by Ms. Almontaser voted in favor of the social services agency. Leaders of the Muslim group walked away feeling disrespected and distrustful of her, several of the group’s members said in interviews. It was a rupture that would come back to haunt Ms. Almontaser.

As preparations moved forward, a design team assembled by Ms. Almontaser named the school after the Lebanese Christian poet and pacifist Khalil Gibran. A Palestinian immigrant had suggested the name, hoping it would deflect any concerns that the school carried a Muslim orientation.

In February 2007, the Department of Education announced that the school had been approved. It would eventually encompass grades 6 through 12, teach half of its classes in Arabic and be among 67 schools in the city that offer programs in both English and another language, like Russian, Spanish and Chinese. Ms. Almontaser designed a recruitment brochure to attract the school’s first class of sixth graders.

The leaflet cited the words of Mr. Gibran: “In understanding, all walls shall fall down.”

Opposition Forms

Irene Alter, a peppy, retired Queens schoolteacher, was sitting at her computer one morning that February when she read an article in The New York Times about the Khalil Gibran school, she said. A series of questions flooded her head.

Which courses would be taught in Arabic? How would Israel be treated in the study of Middle Eastern history? Then in April, she read an op-ed article by Mr. Pipes in The New York Sun.

Conceptually, such a school could be “marvelous,” Mr. Pipes wrote, but in practice, it was certain to be problematic. “Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage,” he wrote, referring to the school as a madrassa, which means school in Arabic but, in the West, carries the implication of Islamic teaching.

Given how little Mr. Pipes knew about the school at the time, the word was “a bit of a stretch,” he said in a recent interview. He defended its use as a way to “get attention” for the cause. It got the attention of Ms. Alter, 60, who contacted Mr. Pipes and, with his encouragement, helped form a grass-roots organization in response to the school project. Mr. Pipes joined the advisory board of the group, which called itself the Stop the Madrassa Coalition.

Mr. Pipes, 58, has emerged as a divisive figure in the post-9/11 era. An author of 12 books who has a doctorate in history from Harvard, he has made a career out of studying and critiquing Islam. His research group, which he established in downtown Philadelphia in the early 1990s, “seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East,” according to its Web site.

Among his supporters, Mr. Pipes enjoys a heroic status; among his detractors, he is reviled. Those sharply divergent views reflect the passions that infuse Middle Eastern politics, arguably nowhere in the United States more than in New York City.

Mr. Pipes is perhaps best known for Campus Watch, a national initiative he created to scrutinize Middle Eastern programs at colleges and universities. The drive has accused professors of, among other things, being soft on militant Islam and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. It has stirred widespread controversy and, in some cases, may have undermined professors’ bids for tenure.

Mr. Pipes was joined in the monitoring effort by other self-declared watchdogs of militant Islam. Their Web sites are often linked to one another and their messages interwoven. One critic, David Horowitz, founded Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a campaign aimed at college campuses. He noted in an interview that monitors of radical Islam have increasingly trained their sights on nonviolent Muslim-Americans.

“They don’t throw bombs, but they create political cover for ideological support of this jihadi movement,” he said.

Mr. Pipes places Muslims in three categories, he said: those who are violent, those who are moderate and those in the middle. It is this middle group, he argued, that now poses the greatest threat to American values.

“Are these people who are not using violence but who are not fully enthusiastic about this country and its mores, its culture — are they on our side or are they on the other side?” he asked.

Ms. Almontaser never considered herself unenthusiastic about America, she said. But as the conflict over the Khalil Gibran school intensified, she came to be seen by many through Mr. Pipes’s lens. In his article in The Sun, he referred to Ms. Almontaser by her birth name, Dhabah, and called her views “extremist.” He cited an article in which she was quoted as saying about 9/11, “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.” (As The Jewish Week later reported, Mr. Pipes left out the second half of the quote: “Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion.”)

The Stop the Madrassa Coalition focused primarily on Ms. Almontaser as a strategy, said Mr. Pipes, because the group could get little information about the school itself. The coalition quickly publicized several discoveries. Ms. Almontaser had accepted an award from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim organization that critics claim has ties to terrorist groups (an assertion the group adamantly denies). In news articles, Ms. Almontaser had been critical of American foreign policy and police tactics in fighting terrorism. She also gave $2,000 to Representative Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia, whom Mr. Pipes and others have characterized as an Islamist sympathizer. (Ms. McKinney, who is no longer in office and did not respond to requests for an interview, has had a strong following among Arab-Americans in part because of her criticism of the Patriot Act.)

Critics of the Madrassa Coalition say its tactics are typical of campaigns singling out Muslims: They lean heavily on guilt by association. The nuances of the claims against Ms. Almontaser were lost as the controversy lit up the blogosphere, said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a liberal organization outside Boston that studies the political right. One Web site, MilitantIslamMonitor.org, displayed photographs of Ms. Almontaser wearing her hijab in different styles, suggesting that she had undergone a public relations makeover to “disguise” her “Islamist agenda.” The criticism of Ms. Almontaser and the school spread to newspapers, eliciting negative editorials in The Daily News and The New York Sun.

Ms. Almontaser was stunned, she said: Her school would touch upon religion only in its global studies class, following the same curriculum as all New York public schools. She tried to keep her head down, she said, and set out to recruit students, half of whom she hoped would be Arab. But opposition to the school mounted after critics learned that its advisory council included three imams (along with rabbis and priests), that there would be an internship for students with a Muslim lawyers’ association and that the proposal for the school suggested it might offer halal food. (The advisory council never met and has since been dismantled, and the school does not offer halal food, Education Department officials said.)

As the attacks continued, Joel Levy of the New York chapter of the Anti-Defamation League published a letter defending Ms. Almontaser in The Sun. Mr. Levy made reference to the possibility that his organization would provide anti-bias training to Ms. Almontaser’s staff.

The letter caused a stir among some Arab-Americans, who were bothered by Ms. Almontaser’s ties to Jewish groups. In late June, Aramica, an Arabic and English newspaper based in Brooklyn, ran a cover story with the headline “Zionist Organization Supports Gibran School Principal,” focusing on the link between Ms. Almontaser’s school and the Anti-Defamation League.

In just five months, Ms. Almontaser’s image had been transformed. She was rendered a radical Muslim by one group and a sellout by another.

T-Shirts, and a Resignation

At first, some city officials rallied to Ms. Almontaser’s side. Among them was David Cantor, the chief spokesman for the Department of Education, who wrote in an e-mail message to the editor of The New York Sun, Seth Lipsky: “I won’t allow Dan Pipes a free pass to smear Debbie Almontaser as an Islamist proselytizer who denies Muslim involvement in 9/11. It is a false picture and an ugly effort.”

But behind closed doors, department officials were nervous, Ms. Almontaser recalled. With her help, she said, they drafted a confidential memo of talking points to review with reporters: the school was “nonreligious,” for example, and Ms. Almontaser was a “multicultural specialist and diversity consultant.”

The Stop the Madrassa Coalition pressed its campaign. In July, one of its members, Pamela Hall, made a discovery that would elevate the controversy. At an Arab-American festival in Brooklyn, she spotted T-shirts on a table bearing the words “Intifada NYC.” The organization distributing them, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, trains young women in community organizing and media production. The group sometimes uses the office of a Yemeni-American association in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Ms. Almontaser sits on the association’s board.

Ms. Hall took a photograph, and a few weeks later, the coalition announced on its blog that Ms. Almontaser was linked to the T-shirts.

On Aug. 3, Ms. Almontaser received a call from Melody Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “What does ‘Intifada NYC’ mean?” Ms. Almontaser recalled Ms. Meyer asking.

Ms. Almontaser was stumped, she said. She knew of the group. But she had never heard about the T-shirts, she said she told Ms. Meyer, adding that “intifada” meant “uprising” and was linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Most reporters lost interest in the T-shirts after Ms. Meyer explained that neither Ms. Almontaser nor the school was linked to them, but The Post persisted. Ms. Almontaser said Ms. Meyer and Mr. Cantor pressured her to respond to the newspaper in an interview.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute,’ ” recalled Ms. Almontaser, who was critical of The Post’s coverage of Arabs and Muslims. “ ‘I am not comfortable doing the interview.’ ”

Ms. Meyer promised to monitor the conversation, Ms. Almontaser said, and Mr. Cantor instructed her not to be “apologetic” about the T-shirts. While both Ms. Meyer and Mr. Cantor said they could not comment on the case, a city lawyer said that Ms. Almontaser was told to avoid discussing the T-shirts and intifada altogether, and was never pressured to speak to The Post.

During the Post interview, Ms. Almontaser said, she told the reporter, Chuck Bennett, that the Arab women’s organization was not connected to her or the school, and that she would never be affiliated with any group that condoned violence. Then Mr. Bennett asked her for the origins of the word intifada, she said.

“The educator in me responded,” Ms. Almontaser said. She explained, with Ms. Meyer listening in on the three-way phone call, that the root of the word means “shaking off.” Ms. Almontaser then offered what she described as a lengthy explanation about the evolution of the word and the “negative connotation” it had developed because of the Arab-Israeli struggle.

“The thought went across my mind to be extremely careful with my words — not to offend the Jewish community and not to offend the Arab-American community,” she said. “I was feeling pressure from all sides.”

Although Ms. Almontaser said she never spoke to the reporter about the T-shirts, she defended the girls in the organization because she believed that the reporter was set on “vilifying innocent teenagers.”

After the reporter hung up, Ms. Almontaser recalled, Ms. Meyer told her, “Good job.”

The next day, The Post ran the article under the headline “City Principal Is ‘Revolting’ — Tied to ‘Intifada NYC’ Shirts.” The article quoted Ms. Almontaser as saying that the girls in the organization were “shaking off oppression,” words that The Post, according to a ruling by federal appellate judges, attributed to Ms. Almontaser “incorrectly and misleadingly.”

Complaints about Ms. Almontaser began pouring into the Education Department, and Mr. Cantor informed her that an apology would be issued in her name. Ms. Almontaser objected, she said, and asked that the department clarify her comments to The Post, which she said were distorted, rather than apologize.

Mr. Cantor insisted on an apology, she said, and e-mailed her the proposed wording. The first sentence was not negotiable, she recalled him telling her. The apology began: “The use of the word intifada is completely inappropriate as a T-shirt slogan for teenagers. I regret suggesting otherwise.” Ms. Almontaser responded in an e-mail message that Mr. Cantor should change the latter sentence to “I regret my response was interpreted as suggesting otherwise.”

The press office issued the original apology. Pressure soon mounted for Ms. Almontaser to resign. Randi Weingarten, the head of the teachers’ union, published a letter in The Post criticizing Ms. Almontaser for not denouncing “ideas tied to violence.” On Aug. 9, Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott asked Ms. Almontaser to step down, she said. “The mayor wants your resignation by 8 a.m. tomorrow so he can announce it on his radio show,” Ms. Almontaser recalled Mr. Walcott saying.

She said he promised her that in exchange for her resignation, the school would still open, and she would remain employed. She resigned the next day, taking an administrative job at the Education Department. She kept her principal’s salary of $120,000.

On his radio program, Mayor Bloomberg announced that Ms. Almontaser had “submitted her resignation,” which “was nice of her to do.”

“She’s certainly not a terrorist,” he said, adding that she was not “all that media savvy maybe.”

Three days later, Ms. Almontaser was replaced by an interim principal, Danielle Salzberg, who is Jewish and speaks no Arabic.

Chaos in a New School

On Sept. 4, the Khalil Gibran International Academy opened its doors at 345 Dean Street as parents ushered their children past a throng of reporters, photographers and television crews.

Chaos soon erupted inside. Students cut classes and got into fights with little consequence, said staff members, parents and students. At least 12 of the 60 students showed signs of behavioral problems or learning disabilities, said Leslie Kahn, a licensed social worker and counselor who was employed at the school until January. (Education Department officials, who denied repeated requests by The Times to visit the school, said there are currently six special-needs students there.)

“Something is flying through the air, every class, every day,” Sean R. Grogan, a science teacher at the school, said in an interview. “Kids bang on the partitions, yell and scream, curse and swear. It’s out of control.”

Physical altercations are frequent, Mr. Grogan and others said, with Arab students and teachers the target of ethnic slurs. “I just don’t feel safe,” said an Arab-American student, 11, who will not return to the school next year.

In the first days after Ms. Almontaser resigned, she felt numb, she said. Her support among Arab-Muslims remained uneven. Had she not alienated some who wanted more of a role in the school’s creation, “the whole community would have stood behind her,” said Wael Mousfar, president of the Arab Muslim American Federation. “A lot of our kids would be part of that school.”

Ms. Almontaser soon found herself flanked by a new group of supporters, including Jewish and Muslim activists, who began lobbying for her to be reinstated as the school’s principal. On Oct. 16, Ms. Almontaser announced that she was suing the Education Department and the mayor. She claimed that her First Amendment rights had been violated because she was forced to resign after she was quoted as saying something controversial.

She requested that the city be prevented from hiring a permanent principal until her case was resolved. A judge rejected the request, and Ms. Almontaser appealed. In March, a federal appeals court upheld the ruling, but the judges were sharply critical of the city’s handling of Ms. Almontaser’s case.

“This was a situation where she was subject to sanction not for anything she said, not for anything she did, but because a newspaper reporter twisted what she said and the result of it was negative press for the city and the Board of Ed,” Judge Jon O. Newman told a city lawyer at a hearing in February.

Ms. Almontaser’s case will proceed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The Stop the Madrassa Coalition continues to protest the school. The group sued the Department of Education in October, requesting detailed information about the school’s creation, faculty and curriculum. While the department has handed over thousands of records, the coalition’s lawyer said the documents leave many questions unanswered, including which textbooks the school is using to teach Arabic. A department spokeswoman said that a list of textbooks selected for the school was sent to the lawyer last fall.

The coalition has also broadened the reach of its campaign. Some members have joined with the Center for Policy Research in American Education, a new organization that will research the influence of radical Islam on public schools around the country.

In recent weeks, conditions at the Khalil Gibran school have improved, said several students and staff members. Holly Anne Reichert, who was appointed as the permanent principal in January, said in an interview that she had reduced some of the disruptive behavior by minimizing class sizes. She added that the media attention had led to a “chaotic experience” for students. “Adults have created this, and children are the ones who have had to endure,” she said.

The school will move to a larger space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, by next fall.

Ms. Almontaser still attends interfaith dinners and awards ceremonies. During the day, she works for the city’s Office of School and Youth Development. Part of her job entails evaluating other schools.

In an odd twist of fate, she was sent to the Bronx last fall to review a small, innovative school that had opened the same month as Khalil Gibran. It also taught a foreign language: Spanish. The students seemed to be thriving. As Ms. Almontaser walked the hallways, she was shaken, she said.

“It wasn’t that I was envious that her dream materialized,” said Ms. Almontaser, referring to the principal. “It was seeing her sixth graders, her teachers, and seeing that she did it. And I didn’t get a chance.”

The New England Clean Energy Council is working hard to both create a cluster of energy and cleantech executives/entrepreneurs/enthusiasts in the New England region, and to increase the profile of the nascent energy industry in the region so dominated by IT/life sciences companies.

Among other things, they have done an excellent job in starting to gain visibility into the Massachusetts legislature and to push for an agenda to promote and support the clean energy entrepreneurs and their startups. Energy industry is unlike other industries - it is even slower moving than the automotive industry - and there is a lack of experienced/repeat entrepreneurs who can bring their knowledge of old war stories to bear down in tough times.

Hence, the initiative recently announced by the NECEC to create fellowships for training and transitioning of former IT/life sciences executives into the energy industry so they can become better acquainted with and knowledgeable in the management of cleantech industry. It is an excellent proposal, though not surprising given that a large number of NECEC members and even leaders fit the profile of those who can use this training themselves (notice the NECEC logo - looks familar?)….but more importantly, while I do think you cannot train an entrepreneur in a short crash program, such as the 3-month program NECEC proposes, it will go a long way in making enthusiastic entrepreneurs looking to enter the cleantech industry feel less intimidated, better networked, more familiar with the background info on the incumbent energy industry, and clustered together for support from each other.

Kudos to NECEC for organizing this!

I have been fortunate in my life to meet some great people. People who have accomplished so much, and have made such vast and lasting impact on humanity, and the sum-total of human knowledge, that I can only say I am left in total awe. By simply being in their proximity and company I have learned how humble and inconsequential my own work has been. Edward Lorenz was one of those figures. Ed died today at age 90.

Ed was a professor of Meteorology at MIT who was already in his late years when I completed my Ph.D. there. Even though i did my Ph.D. in the chemistry department, my thesis advisor had his office and labs in the EAPS (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences), which was also home to Ed. He walked our hallways, he joined us at the daily 3PM coffee hour, and he provided kind, generous, and insightful comments on elevator rides with him. I remember hearing about him as the pioneer of chaos theory and then read a bit on him and his work. I can safely say it was more mathematical than I could comprehend, but the power and importance of his work was not lost on me. I was in awe, and remain. Great people impact generations to come. He was one of them and I consider myself so lucky to have experienced his company, even if just via casual conversations an elevator rides. May his soul rest in peace.

Here is news item on his passing from the MIT News.

Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory and butterfly effect, dies at 90

April 16, 2008

Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist who tried to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts and wound up unleashing a scientific revolution called chaos theory, died April 16 of cancer at his home in Cambridge. He was 90.

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere–or a model of the atmosphere–could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

These observations ultimately led him to formulate what became known as the butterfly effect–a term that grew out of an academic paper he presented in 1972 entitled: “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”

Lorenz’s early insights marked the beginning of a new field of study that impacted not just the field of mathematics but virtually every branch of science–biological, physical and social. In meteorology, it led to the conclusion that it may be fundamentally impossible to predict weather beyond two or three weeks with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Some scientists have since asserted that the 20th century will be remembered for three scientific revolutions–relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos.

“By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics,” said Kerry Emanuel professor of atmospheric science at MIT. “He was also a perfect gentleman, and through his intelligence, integrity and humility set a very high standard for his and succeeding generations.”

Born in 1917 in West Hartford, Conn., Lorenz received an AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938, an AM in mathematics from Harvard University in 1940, an SM in meteorology from MIT in 1943 and an ScD in meteorology from MIT in 1948. It was while serving as a weather forecaster for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II that he decided to do graduate work in meteorology at MIT.

“As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers, and was also fascinated by changes in the weather,” Lorenz wrote in an autobiographical sketch.

Lorenz was a member of the staff of what was then MIT’s Department of Meteorology from 1948 to 1955, when he was appointed to the faculty as an assistant professor. He was promoted to professor in 1962 and was head of the department from 1977 to 1981. He became an emeritus professor in 1987.

Lorenz, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, won numerous awards, honors and honorary degrees. In 1983, he and former MIT Professor Henry M. Stommel were jointly awarded the $50,000 Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a prize established to recognize fields not eligible for Nobel Prizes.

In 1991, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences. Lorenz was cited by the Kyoto Prize committee for establishing “the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology.” The committee added that Lorenz “made his boldest scientific achievement in discovering ‘deterministic chaos,’ a principle which has profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind’s view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton.”

During leaves of absence from MIT, he held research or teaching positions at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.; the Department of Meteorology at the University of California at Los Angeles; the Det Norske Meteorologiske Insitutt in Oslo, Norway; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

An avid hiker and cross-country skier, Lorenz was active up until about two weeks before his death, his family said.

Lorenz is survived by three children, Nancy, Edward and Cheryl, and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 20, at the Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., Cambridge. The MIT News Office will update this announcement as more details become available.

I have been fortunate in my life to meet some great people. People who have accomplished so much, and have made such vast and lasting impact on humanity, and the sum-total of human knowledge, that I can only say I am left in total awe. By simply being in their proximity and company I have learned how humble and inconsequential my own work has been. Edward Lorenz was one of those figures. Ed died today at age 90.

Ed was a professor of Meteorology at MIT who was already in his late years when I completed my Ph.D. there. Even though i did my Ph.D. in the chemistry department, my thesis advisor had his office and labs in the EAPS (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences), which was also home to Ed. He walked our hallways, he joined us at the daily 3PM coffee hour, and he provided kind, generous, and insightful comments on elevator rides with him. I remember hearing about his as the pioneer of chaos theory and then reading a bit on him and his work. I can safely say it was more mathematical than I could comprehend, but the power and importance of his work was not lost on me. I was in awe, and remain as such. Great people impact generations to come. He was one of them and I consider myself so lucky to have experienced his company, even if just via casual conversations an elevator rides. May his soul rest in peace.

Here is news item on his passing from the MIT News.

Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory and butterfly effect, dies at 90

April 16, 2008

Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist who tried to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts and wound up unleashing a scientific revolution called chaos theory, died April 16 of cancer at his home in Cambridge. He was 90.

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere–or a model of the atmosphere–could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

These observations ultimately led him to formulate what became known as the butterfly effect–a term that grew out of an academic paper he presented in 1972 entitled: “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”

Lorenz’s early insights marked the beginning of a new field of study that impacted not just the field of mathematics but virtually every branch of science–biological, physical and social. In meteorology, it led to the conclusion that it may be fundamentally impossible to predict weather beyond two or three weeks with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Some scientists have since asserted that the 20th century will be remembered for three scientific revolutions–relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos.

“By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics,” said Kerry Emanuel professor of atmospheric science at MIT. “He was also a perfect gentleman, and through his intelligence, integrity and humility set a very high standard for his and succeeding generations.”

Born in 1917 in West Hartford, Conn., Lorenz received an AB in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938, an AM in mathematics from Harvard University in 1940, an SM in meteorology from MIT in 1943 and an ScD in meteorology from MIT in 1948. It was while serving as a weather forecaster for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II that he decided to do graduate work in meteorology at MIT.

“As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers, and was also fascinated by changes in the weather,” Lorenz wrote in an autobiographical sketch.

Lorenz was a member of the staff of what was then MIT’s Department of Meteorology from 1948 to 1955, when he was appointed to the faculty as an assistant professor. He was promoted to professor in 1962 and was head of the department from 1977 to 1981. He became an emeritus professor in 1987.

Lorenz, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, won numerous awards, honors and honorary degrees. In 1983, he and former MIT Professor Henry M. Stommel were jointly awarded the $50,000 Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, a prize established to recognize fields not eligible for Nobel Prizes.

In 1991, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences. Lorenz was cited by the Kyoto Prize committee for establishing “the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology.” The committee added that Lorenz “made his boldest scientific achievement in discovering ‘deterministic chaos,’ a principle which has profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind’s view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton.”

During leaves of absence from MIT, he held research or teaching positions at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.; the Department of Meteorology at the University of California at Los Angeles; the Det Norske Meteorologiske Insitutt in Oslo, Norway; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

An avid hiker and cross-country skier, Lorenz was active up until about two weeks before his death, his family said.

Lorenz is survived by three children, Nancy, Edward and Cheryl, and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 20, at the Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., Cambridge. The MIT News Office will update this announcement as more details become available.

Cleantech companies typically require a lot of capital before they become profitable and bring success to their investors. Investing in them can be rather strange business for all the IT/media/tech investors (which is a majority of the the VCs out there) who are used to deploying smaller capital amounts to reach commercial success. John Doer told us (again) just last week that Google required a total investment of merely $25million!

So what are early stage cleantech venture investors to do when their portfolio companies require >$100 million before scalability of technology is proven and reached? To prevent dilution VCs have to keep on investing in subsequent rounds. But doing so might require slightly difference investment vehicles, and probably a different set of professionals.

So that is exactly what they are doing! Many major VC firms are raising large funds solely focused on later stage financing of energy/cleantech companies. Private equity investors and investment banking professionals are in demand and they are joining leading firms in large numbers. Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, etc…‘they are all doing it’, as a VC remarked to me. Interesting!

Here’s the news on Seqouia Capital from the PE Week Wire.

Asset diversification has become business as usual in private equity, as many top-tier firms have launched distressed funds, real estate funds, hedge funds, sub-debt funds and other things that don’t involve privacy or equity (let alone both). Venture capital firms, on the other hand, have mostly stuck to their knitting. Sure, you can argue the demerits of certain firms moving toward later-stage deals or raising country-specific funds, it most of it still falls within the conventional rubric of venture capital.

But venture giant Sequoia Capital may be the trailblazer who helps change all that. There have been rumors floating for several months that the firm was planning to launch some sort of hedge fund practice, and now some pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together. First, Sequoia has quietly hired Eric Upin, who most recently served as chief investment officer for the Stanford University endowment. Second, my colleague Alex Haislip reported that Sequoia has been trying to poach hedge talent since last November, and that it’s been talking about a $750 million target.

I spoke to a bunch of Sequoia limited partners yesterday, and only a few had heard about the Upin hire. Those with knowledge declined to get too specific, but indicated that Sequoia is planning something more innovative – and perhaps more comprehensive – than simply creating a hedge fund product (presumably focused on tech). It also seems that these plans also are still in the formative stages, and subject to change.

No word yet on who else Sequoia has hired for this mystery endeavor, except that I do know that Upin is not alone. Just for some brief background: Upin was a senior partner and managing director of equity research at Robertson Stephens between 1993 and 2002, after which he spent two years as director of tech research with Wells Fargo. He then joined Stanford Management Co. In February 2005 to oversee public equity investments, and one year later was named CIO when Mike McCaffrey left to hang his own shingle. He announced that November that he’d be leaving Stanford come February 2008, in order to pursue other opportunities.

More information as it becomes available. Upin did not return my calls, while Sequoia’s Mike Moritz declined comment.

Here is an interesting quip from PE Wire:

*** I’ve probably had a dozen conversations with VC limited partners over the past week, and every one of them has asked me some variation of: “Why are Sequoia Capital and KKR expanding beyond traditional venture capital?”

It’s a great query, and the consensus answer lies somewhere between hubris and a recognition that venture capital rarely produces the outsized returns that it once did (we call this “PE envy”). The principals themselves aren’t talking, so let me suggest another option in which I play pop psychologist: These firms have been at the top forever, and are in little danger of being knocked off (particularly Sequoia). So the only option is to continue being the best VC firms indefinitely (i.e., status quo) or they can try to become the best at something new (i.e., challenge themselves). Plus, the latter option lets them recognize some brand equity without selling a 20% firm ownership stake to Dubai. Just thinking aloud…

Here is an article I wrote for Dinar Standard. Check out this new publication that aims to discuss business issues in the Muslim world.

—

Masdar City: Not a showcase, but an ‘Entrepreneurial Eco-system’

By Bilal Zuberi, Ph.D. , Guest Contributor Co-founder, GEO2 Technologies, Inc. Posted Apr 8, 2008

The world today runs on fossil fuel. Our food, water, transportation, and quality of life are all dependent on fuel that is primarily concentrated in a few geographic regions. Middle East has been endowed with vast reserves of oil and gas which have been the primary source of the economy of the region for the past few decades. It is estimated that in 2007 the world consumed greater than 446 quadrillion BTUs of energy (EIA estimates), more than 85% of which came from fossil fuels. This natural resource has brought a boom to Middle East economies. With oil prices above $100 per barrel, Abu Dhabi for example collects oil revenue greater than $200 million a day, giving it the 2nd highest GDP in the region (after Qatar).

Image source: www.masdaruae.com

But here’s a problem that all smart policy-makers in the oil producing countries are faced with: not only are their oil reserves expected to eventually run out (EIA estimates peak oil to be reached in year 2037), but they face also a mounting awareness around the world of the negative impact of continued dependence on fossil fuel. The 446 quadrillion BTUs of energy used to fuel the global economy also generated approximately 26,000 million metric tons of CO2, a greenhouse gas that is considered to be the primary culprit of global climate change. (Abu Dhabi is estimated to have a CO2 emissions intensity of 34 metric tons per capita, compared to a global average of 4.3 metric tons per capita. Source: EIA).

Global warming would bring a disruption of geological, climate and natural cycles that would put the lives of billions of people at risk due to changes in land temperatures, sea-water levels, rainfall patterns, biodiversity erosion, agricultural decline, spread of infectious diseases, and increased intensity of extreme weather events. It has become obvious that our fragile earth cannot continue to depend on fossil fuels and sooner or later, a sustainable energy source must be found.

“Abu Dhabi is estimated to have a CO2 emissions intensity of 34 metric tons per capita, compared to a global average of 4.3 metric tons per capita. Source: EIA” Image: www.abudhabi.ms

So what is a country that is dependant on extracting value from oil and gas to do? Abu Dhabi, it seems, has found a path towards a sustainable and profitable future. The Masdar Initiative is Abu Dhabi’s way of investing in their future, experimenting with technology and business innovations that can lend to a sustainable way of living for its residents, and for the rest of the world.

Masdar City: World’s First Zero-Carbon, Zero-Waste, Car-Free City

The word ‘Masdar’ means ‘Source’ in Arabic. Masdar City is an impressively planned and funded ‘green’ city, to be constructed near the airport in Abu Dhabi. Designed and managed by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company and in collaboration with the Worldwide Fund for Nature, it will be the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city. Masdar will cover an area of roughly 6 square kilometers and will eventually be home to approximately 1500 businesses and 50,000 residents. At the inaugural World Future Energy Summit, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi announced US$15 billion in initial investment through the Masdar Initiative in projects targeting solar, wind and hydrogen power; carbon reduction and management; sustainable development; education; manufacturing; and research and development.

The vision behind this unprecedented effort is based on ten broad-based principles of sustainable living, and on a desire to make Abu Dhabi a hotbed for innovation in energy, environment, water and sustainability - resources that are bound to be scarce in the future.

The ten principals are (1) zero CO2 emissions, (2) zero waste, (3) sustainable transportation, (4) use of eco-conscious materials, (5) sustainable food supply, (6) sustainable water, (7) protection of habitats and wildlife, ( integration of local culture and heritage, (9) equity and fair trade, and (10) overall health and happiness of its residents.

Hope for an ‘Entrepreneurial Eco-System’

As I try to envision the success that Masdar aims to achieve, I find myself asking what could truly differentiate this initiative from any other mega initiatives that are being contemplated in the Middle East region – there are large projects being planned in a few other Middle Eastern states such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan etc. The thought that comes to my mind is the building of a sustainable ‘entrepreneurial eco-system’, an idea that is novel to most sustainability projects around the world.

I hope that Masdar City will not just be a show-case for energy technologies and environmentally prudent creative or far-reaching ideas, but that it will cultivate an eco-system that will give birth to technology, business and policy innovations that can be implemented not just in Abu Dhabi, but across the world. If it succeeds in doing so, Masdar City will not become known as a flashy project borne out of a state flush with cash, but as the Mecca of sustainability innovations that fueled the future.

The difference between the new cleantech revolution that we are witnessing today, and the environmental movements of the past is that it is (a) market driven and not regulatory-driven, (b) proactive in finding solutions and not reactive and (c) is interdisciplinary and not engineering oriented. The vision of the founders of Masdar City is well aligned to encourage flag bearers of this movement to find a home in Abu Dhabi. Masdar City needs to host, sustain and invest in the entrepreneurial mindset of this movement that not only strives to achieve product and operational excellence but also thinks big and bold for the region and at a global scale.

Artist Rendering of Masdar City
Image source: www.masdaruae.com

Ingredients for an ‘Entrepreneurial Eco-System’

So what are some of the ingredients that Masdar City might need to inject to develop such an ‘eco-system’ that will cultivate a ‘gene-pool’ of excellence in energy and related industries? Here are some thoughts:

Education and research: Masdar is already in discussions with various internationally recognized institutions to attract the best of the best to the region and have them develop local talent. The Masdar Institute is a non-profit, independent entity established with the assistance of my alma-mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to assist in graduate research and education.

Investment in innovation: I purposely place this separate from research because an eco-system such as Masdar City needs to encourage innovations that are practical, affordable and quickly deployable to make rapid improvements in our global negative environmental footprint. The success of Masdar City will not only be when all the hand-picked residents of this transportation island will be using electric-transportation, but when such technologies will become affordable for the billion+ people who currently use polluting motorcycles and mopeds.

Stake-holder participation: While the planning of a city is often a government enterprise, Masdar is not expected to be an ordinary city. Masdar should try to seek input from experts in the various fields, including stakeholders who have long term interest in Masdar’s success. These stakeholders include not only those who will reside within the limits and be a part of this giant experiment, but they include the innovators, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, private investors, and the audience that will be closely watching if the Masdar City projects will deliver on the promise.

Equity for the local entrepreneurs: According to a McKinsey report, while the region is flush with cash, weak capital markets and an inability to assess risk leads to a lack of investment in small and medium sized businesses. This sector is typically the engine of innovation, economic growth, and stability. For example, 40% of US GDP growth has come from this sector in the past. Can the small guy with a crazy idea make it big by utilizing the resources that Masdar has to offer?

Supporting innovations stuck in the ‘Valley of Death’: Clean-tech is ultimately an expensive business that requires capital to scale and become competitive with incumbent technologies. Masdar City has the financial muscle to take innovative solutions through the ‘Valley of Death’, allowing innovations to develop economies of scale before reaching profitability. The Masdar Cleantech Fund, a $250 million diversified VC fund is one vehicle already in place to promote such an effort.

Infrastructure development: The city, no doubt, can and will be truly worth visiting and admiring for its wow-factor. But I hope it will go further and demonstrate how such infrastructural designs can be implemented in cities across the globe. Can Masdar show how to make hydrogen-fueled transport infrastructure economically attractive even for developing parts of the world? How should crowded cities with terrible infrastructure move their people using mass transit programs? How can precious water resources be transported, conserved and recycled?

Building local, regional and global markets: Entrepreneurship relies on quick market feedback, brand development and management of total risk. Development of local and regional markets, in addition to support of projects with a global view, is as important to the clean-tech industry as any other disruptive technology-based industry.

Positioned as the Global Center of Next Generation Energy Industry

Masdar City is an ambitious project but there could not have been a better time for such bold vision to be implemented. Masdar’s visionaries expect to nurture technological excellence, drive innovations, support an industrial infrastructure that leverages cheap energy inputs to reach scale, and then invest globally in the resulting breakthroughs to deliver long-term growth and leadership. If done right, no better game-plan for securing the future of Abu Dhabi could have been penned.

From renewable energy generation (such as solar, waste to energy and hydrogen) to energy distribution and consumption (transport efficiency and building design) and to energy intensive chemicals industries and CO2 abatement – there is tremendous room for defining the future of the world. In the future, fuels such as solar, wind, hydro etc but may be available world wide, but Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as the center of the next generation energy industry. And with Masdar it will be possible for it to do so with a carbon footprint that is as white as the color of the dresses that its local wear.

Key Learnings:

Masdar City is being planned as the ‘greenest’ city in the world. Covering an area of 6 sq kms, it will host 1500+ businesses and 50,000+ residents in a zero-carbon, zero-waste, no car environment. Technical and business innovations emerging from Masdar are expected to not just promote sustainable living within Abu Dhabi , but will also position Abu Dhabi as the future center of the energy industry for the entire world. The Masdar Initiative will be considered a success not if it brings a showcase to the world for what can be done with a lot of money, but if it allows an entrepreneurial eco-system for clean energy, water and sustainable living to develop and thrive. ————————————————————– Dr. Bilal Zuberi is a co-founder and VP Product development at GEO2 Technologies, a Boston-area materials science clean tech company developing and commercializing high porosity high temperature ceramic materials for automotive emission control and novel chemical reactor systems. Prior to joining GEO2, Bilal Zuberi was a consultant in the Boston office of The Boston Consulting Group,.. He has a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from MIT. Dr. Zuberi has been an advisor and consultant to private investors, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in clean tech, esp. engine technologies, solar thermal, and thermo-electric materials.. He also maintains an online blog on related issues at BZnotes.wordpress.com. He is married to Dr. Lama Rimawi, a fellow MIT alum from Palestine/Jordan and a pediatrician, and lives in Cambridge (MA), USA

Here is a video on Masdar: