The Nordics are among the world’s 10 smartest countries – most likely to ‘produce the next Google’

Tom Turula 17 Aug 2017 10:48 AM [caption id="attachment_3510" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Spotify Press Photo[/caption] Sweden, Finland and Denmark are very well-positioned to foster the big ideas of tomorrow. This according to the Intelligence Capital Index (ICI), compiled by Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD, Kai L. Chan, who gauged four parameters – education, creativity, cognitive skills and attractiveness for skilled immigrants – to determine the smartest countries in the world with the best innovation potential. The ICI was published by INSEAD Innovation & Policy Initiative Sweden tops the Nordic countries at sixth place, tightly followed by Finland and Denmark on 9th and 10th spots. The top ten is otherwise populated by European and North American countries, with the exception of Australia and Singapore. Chan notes that the Nordics have “typically high scores on the aspects of attractiveness for immigrants and creativity.” The ranking pins Sweden as the world’s most creative country, followed by Finland and the U.S. “Creativity should be part and parcel of any measure of human capital. Rote learning and memorisation are fast losing value in an era increasingly relying on computers and robots,” writes Chan, who used the Global Creativity Index and countries’ ratio of R&D expenditure-to-GDP as creativity proxies. Denmark excelled with the quantity and quality of its elite education (5thand 9th in…

Най-умните държави в света

Кои са страните, които могат да родят следващия Google Когато Сергей Брин е на 16 години, а семейството му вече живее в САЩ от 10 години, баща му го взима със себе си на кратко посещение в Русия. Годината е 1990, а Съветският съюз е пред разпад. На втория ден от пътуването тийнейджърът вече е наясно какъв живот е можел да има при други обстоятелства. Бъдещият съосновател на Google дърпа баща си настрани и откровено му казва: "Благодаря ти, че ни изведе от Русия." Макар от тогава да мина много време и Русия да се възстанови, младият Брин спечели лотарията с гражданството си. С израстването си в САЩ той получи достъп до страхотно образование и среда, която подхранва начина му на мислене. Като дете учи в Montessori, което стимулира креативността. По-късно е в "Станфорд", където се среща с Лари Пейдж и заедно двамата основават един от най-скъпите брандове в света. Историята на Брин показва как при правилната среда образованието и креативността може да доведат до трансформативни иновации в глобалната икономика на знанието. Блестящият му ум щеше да се представи добре навсякъде, но интелектуалната и предприемаческата среда в "Станфорд" позволява разгръщането на пълните умения на Брин. Така, около тези параметри беше…

Lebanon ranks 100th in Intelligence Capital Index

Countries capitalise on the knowledge economy to advance Published: 16:59 July 14, 2017 Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Beirut: Lebanon, which frequently boasts of its unique education capabilities ranked 100th with a low score of 16.9 [or simply a D] in the Intelligence Capital Index. The first Arab country on the list, the UAE, closed in at the 49th spot, followed by Qatar (60), Saudi Arabia (62), Kuwait (63), Bahrain (65), Oman (76), Jordan (80), Tunisia (85), Morocco (94), Egypt (98), and Algeria (103). Kai L. Chan, a distinguished fellow at the French-led INSEAD global business school, published the unique Intelligence Capital Index for 128 countries that aimed to gauge the ability of countries to capitalise on the knowledge economy by assessing their environments for education, creativity and talent attraction. The first five countries in the INSEAD roster were the US, UK, Germany, Australia and Singapore. Israel came in at 25, Turkey at 54 and Iran at 82. Most of issues that motivated rankings were related to education creativity and talent attraction, and while Lebanon certainly enjoyed the talent, most of its gifted innovators succeeded abroad instead of thriving in their native land. The INSEAD barometer focused on each country’s…

Intelligence Capital Index

Article in World Monitor Magazine about the my Intelligence Capital Index. ABOUT In a global knowledge economy, education and creativity are paramount to being competitive. The Intelligence Capital Index (ICI) is a way to gauge the ability of countries to capitalise on the knowledge economy by assessing their environments for education, creativity and talent attraction. The ICI is a barometer a nation’s stock of “smarts”. It measures which nations are most likely to expand the frontier of knowledge and/or introduce the technology and innovations of the knowledge economy. Hitherto, most assessments of a country’s knowledge base have been focused on the quantity of education and, when outputs are considered, it is invariably limited to average scholastic performance (in the form of standardised test results). But this view of quantity and of averages is misguided when considering the intelligence capital of a country. In contrast to alternative measures of human capital and talent, the ICI has several distinguishing features: (i) It adjusts for quality in education outcomes; (ii) It measures the progression of cognitive skills through the human life cycle; (iii) It considers the distribution of cognitive skills with an emphasis on the top performers; and (iv) It includes an external…

Qatar’s gender gap is one of the largest in the world, new index says

  MARCH 17, 2017 by VICTORIA SCOTT Qatar is home to one of the most unequal societies in the world when it comes to gender, according to a new index. The country ranked 117th out of 122 nations listed in business school INSEAD‘s Gender Progress Index 2017, which was released this month. That puts Qatar behind all of its Gulf peers. According to the report, the low score had to do with a lack of female political involvement, as well as the low number of men pursuing higher education in Qatar. That said, none of the Gulf countries fared particularly well in the index. The UAE was the highest-ranked GCC nation at 85th. Kuwait was 99th, Bahrain 103rd, Saudi Arabia 110th and Oman was 113th. ‘Uneven development’ The index covers five different aspects of a nation: education, health, labor, political involvement and society. Within each of these sections are several different parameters. These include PISA scores, obesity and mortality rates, shares of seats in positions of power and parental leave allowances. Qatar’s poor score is due to its “uneven development,” the report’s author and INSEAD economist Dr. Kai Chan told Doha News. “While good in some areas, it (Qatar’s development) is not balanced,” he said. A different kind of index According to Chan, this…

Ongoing quest to bridge the gender divide

[caption id="attachment_3345" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Economist Kai Chan, author of the Gender Progress Index, is also a distinguished fellow at Insead who also advises the UAE Federal Government on competitiveness and statistics. Delores Johnson / The National.[/caption] Ongoing quest to bridge the gender divide Suzanne Locke March 13, 2017 Updated: March 13, 2017 06:18 PM When we try to close the gender gap for women, we should remember that there are two genders and that both have gaps, says economist Kai Chan. "Society progresses when both genders are able to maximise their outcomes," says Mr Chan, author of the Gender Progress Index, a report released by Insead business school in Abu Dhabi to commemorate International Women’s Day. "When we talk about gender there are two genders and both have gaps. It is about assessing which countries are doing the best at achieving the full potential of both sexes."  Mr Chan is a distinguished fellow at Insead who also advises the UAE federal Government on competitiveness and statistics. In his index, the UAE ranks 85 out of 122 countries, top in the GCC but lower than Tunisia or Algeria (at numbers 55 and 65 respectively) in the wider Middle East. Kuwait ranked…

UAE tops GCC in INSEAD Gender Progress Index

Published Saturday, March 11, 2017 The UAE achieved another milestone in the area of women's empowerment by leading the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in a Gender Progress Index (GPI) released by INSEAD, a top business school. INSEAD's GPI takes a holistic view towards gender issues and includes five dimensions: Education, health, labour, politics and power, and society. The index considers the relative performance of men versus women with no distinction between the two. The findings of the index were discussed at a seminar marking International Women’s Day at the INSEAD Middle East Campus in Abu Dhabi, and were presented by Dr. Kai L. Chan, Distinguished Fellow, Innovation & Policy Initiative, INSEAD. "The index will enable policy makers to understand the problems within society and focus on where efforts should be placed. It is about assessing which countries are doing their best in achieving the full potential of both sexes. There are more obstacles to women, but society progresses when both genders maximise their outcomes,'' Chan said. ''So far, other gender reports have focussed exclusively on either the level of gender progress or the ratio between men and women (i.e. absolute progress vs relative progress). For the GCC countries to perform…

UAE tops GCC in Gender Progress Index (The National)

The National staff March 10, 2017 Updated: March 12, 2017 08:26 AM ABU DHABI // The UAE topped the GCC in a Gender Progress Index released by business school Insead this week. The index takes a holistic view towards gender issues and includes education, health, labour, politics, power and society. It considers the relative performance of men versus women with no distinction between the two. The findings were discussed at a seminar marking International Women’s Day at the Insead Middle East Campus in Abu Dhabi, and were presented by Dr Kai Chan, distinguished fellow at the school’s Innovation and Policy Initiative. "The index will enable policy makers to understand the problems within society and focus on where efforts should be placed," Dr Chan said. "It is about assessing which countries are doing their best in achieving the full potential of both sexes. There are more obstacles to women, but society progresses when both genders maximise their outcomes." He said so far, other gender reports had focused exclusively on either the level of gender progress or the ratio between men and women. "For the GCC countries to perform higher on the index, they need to ensure a more balanced development," he added.…

Radio interview with Dubai Eye (FM 103.8) – “INSEAD Gender Progress Index”

Dr Kai L Chan, Distinguished Fellow of Innovation & Policy Initiative for the business school INSEAD, introduces their new Gender Progress Index that studies where men, as well as women, are being left behind. Copyright © 2017, Arabian Radio Network. All rights reserved.

UAE tops Gender Progress Index in GCC (Gulf News)

The index reveals gender ratios on multiple dimensions and was revealed in Abu Dhabi on International Women’s Day Abu Dhabi: The UAE tops the GCC in a Gender Progress Index developed by one of the world’s leading business schools that takes a holistic view of gender issues. At a seminar held to mark International Women’s Day, titled ‘Inspire, Impact and Empower’, INSEAD revealed its findings on its Middle East campus in Abu Dhabi. Developed by Dr Kai L. Chan, Distinguished Fellow, Innovation and Policy Initiative, INSEAD, the index was created to help societies reach the full potential of both sexes, without prejudice on the gender of outcomes. It covers five dimensions: education, health, labour, politics and power, and society. The index is different from the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report (WEF GGR) which in 2016 reported that the most challenging gender gaps remain in the economic sphere and in health, projecting that, at the current rate of change, the gap will not be closed for another 170 years. “The [WEF GGR] report is a little misleading … it only looks at the gap in one dimension. This index looks at not only the gaps (the ratios of men to…