“The MENA region has not made the best use of its accumulated human capital, unemployment is high among graduates and the education system in the region is not fully equipped to produce graduates.” These are just two of the many damming conclusions made in a recent World Bank report, The Road Not Traveled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa. The World Bank report also showed that right across the region the education system is in dire straits.

The World Bank’s Knowledge Economy Index, which incorporates the economic incentive regime, innovation, education and the information infrastructure, reveals that almost all the MENA countries fall below the middle range of the index. The highest scoring country in the MENA region was the UAE, which was below Chile and Estonia.

The Gulf countries, helped along with a large current account, have recognized the urgency of their educational situation and have put their vast surplus capital into attracting foreign educational institutions to set up in their region. This has occurred at a time when many educational institutions in Europe and America are seeing a financial need to operate much like the knowledge that they produce: globally.

Educational institutions are now being transformed from their local establishments into trans-national institutions. The names of many universities that attach them to a place — The University of Georgetown, the University of California, The London School of Economics, the London School of Business and so on — will soon lose their sense of locale as big universities are now looking to have several campuses spread throughout the globe.

The reason for this trans-nationalization of educational institutions is that both the receivers of these institutions and the institutions themselves have recognized that the world of higher education has become an international market. As Professor Tim Wilson, vice-chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire in Britain, said, “Students are increasingly seeing themselves as customers and their time at university as an investment.” Attracting students from around the globe to educational institutions in Europe and America is no longer seen as economically viable.

Internationalizing instruction

To become more competitive universities in Europe and America are now not trying to attract students from aboard to travel to them but instead the institutions themselves are going to these international students through setting up campuses throughout the world.

Wilson believes that, despite 13% of students in the UK coming from outside the EU, universities still have to become more competitive in both national and global higher education markets: “Internationalization does not just mean creating a multicultural community here in the UK on British terms. It must mean establishing a network of partners on a global basis. To be truly international universities need to do more than invite international students on to our campuses.”

The University of Hertfordshire now has a network of partners established in colleges in Malaysia, Greece, China, Singapore, Germany, Russia, Hungary the Caribbean and Canada, with this network growing each year. All these colleges “teach Hertfordshire degrees, delivering British style education.” This policy has paid off for the British institution with their international franchise income exceeding $2 million annually. 

In the Middle East, Qatar and United Arab Emirates have so far led the way in encouraging foreign institutions, similar to the University of Hertfordshire, to set up campuses in their countries. In Doha, Qatar, an initiative by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development created a 14 square kilometer ‘Education City’.

In ‘Education City’ five American Universities have set up campuses including Georgetown and Cornell Medical School. The financial incentives for the American and European educational institutions are sizable and obvious. The Cornell medical school has been granted $750 million over 11 years by the Qatar Foundation to spend on its campus.

However, it is also the exorbitant fees these institutions can charge that have driven so many to create campuses outside their own localities. For example, the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar will cost a student nearly $36,000 an academic year, the same as one would pay in Georgetown.

Dubai has seen similar phenomena but is trying a slightly different approach in linking up its newly created Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) with universities. Two of the best business schools in Europe — CASS and the London Business School (LBS) — have both set up Executive MBA’s at the DIFC.

Dr. Kevin Dunseath, LBS Director in Dubai, thinks the advantage for Dubai in attracting institutions like LBS is a wider array of options for local students in terms of the courses they are able to access without the need to go abroad and also the ability of the school to attract skilled staff and retain them regionally.

The attraction Dubai held for  LBS was its location and nature as a regional business hub and also because the Dubai authorities were very welcoming and encouraging.

Some fail the grade

Dunseath pointed out that “there have been stories already of universities setting up overseas and collapsing — for instance the University of Southern Queensland in Dubai and New South Wales in Singapore.”

The collapse of these universities occurred at a great cost — financially and in terms of reputation. Hence, Dunseath cautioned “it is initially very tempting to think let’s go global and set up a campus but there are significant risks in so doing: if you dilute your brand you are finished, this is the most important thing to protect.”

The challenge to deliver the same quality of education in institutions setting up overseas campuses that match their home institution has proved to be the most difficult in the trans-nationalization of higher education institutions. “There is a lot of suspicion on behalf of our clients as to institutions that hire locally because the clients will say… it may be the same name but is it the same product? [By flying our faculty from our main base] this is our assurance that it is the same product,” Dunseath asserted.

Where to source staff from for the LBS’ operation in Dubai was also the reason that LBS set up a ‘center’ rather than a larger-scale campus, as the business school felt it was unable to ensure that it could guarantee its quality by employing locally. Dunseath emphasized that “the key for us was the maintenance and enhancement of our brand.”

Thus the MBA program that is offered is taught exclusively by LBS faculty, or, as Dunseath remarked, “It is not a fake Rolex.”

Local investors are also to be side-stepped he warned, “as the danger is that you end up with two different agendas: the academics on one side who are concerned about standards and quality and on the other hand you have the local investors who are mainly concerned with a return on investment.”

The London-Dubai Executive MBA offered by the LBS is very much a course that illustrates the changing and more mobile nature of higher education. LBS being in London has a major advantage over its North American rivals as the flight is only seven hours from Dubai to London. Subsequently, flying faculty staff from the London campus to the center in Dubai is far more feasible for British and European institutions than their American rivals.

This may be a major competitive advantage if the debate surrounding the quality of education actually delivered in these externally based institutions intensifies as their numbers continue to increase. As Dunseath attested, “this is not a local MBA program but a global one and is aimed at educating global leaders who operate around the world. Some of the students fly in every month to attend the classes in Dubai and the second half of this course is in London.”

The global nature of higher education is fully embodied by the making up of the course in which the seventy students represent thirty different countries. However, this global composition illustrates the difficulty that still lays ahead for the MENA region in increasing the skill base of its citizens, as only 35% of the course is filled by students from the Middle East and North Africa. This is a world where the local is completely taken out of higher educational facilities. Dunseath in particular was eager to stress that the London Business School had as little as possible in way of connections with local investors, local higher education institutions, locally skilled staff or even ‘local’ customers.

Adding or subtracting?

There is little doubt that institutions such as LBS and others setting up in the Middle East will benefit hugely financially and, if they are diligent, in terms of reputation as well. How much the Middle East will benefit from these institutions is yet to be seen. There is a risk that they could drown out any local efforts at educational institutional building and block those that cannot afford the fees from accessing quality higher education.

However, it is possible these institutions will stimulate higher education regionally by producing highly skilled citizens who can then drive the education system on. What is certain is if the region wants to achieve sustainable growth that is less reliant on foreign skills and outside institutions, the World Bank Knowledge Economy Index must be turned around.

For more than a decade the traditional car manufacturing hubs in Italy, Germany, Japan, and the United States have been challenged by a host of developing countries who are changing the business with their lower production costs and geographic proximity to burgeoning markets in Africa and Asia.

Global demand for more affordable cars, coupled with Western investment, has shifted the automobile manufacturing epicenters east. For many, India holds the future of the auto production process, denoted recently by the Tata Group’s purchase of Jaguar and Range Rover. Within the MENA region, however, it is Iran that is making the car industry headlines, as it is set to establish its own presence in Asia and abroad with its car giant Khodro, branching into new markets and demanding attention for its forays into Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Since Iran’s auto industry inception in the 1960s with the Peykan — modeled after the British Hillman Hunter — the state-owned company Khodro, along with Iran’s second largest manufacturer Saipa, have come to expand their offers and now produce licensed versions of Peugot, Hyundai, Kia, Citroen, Nissan, Renault, Dacia, and Mercedes models.

Many believe that Khodro’s biggest strength lies in the manufacturing of these licensed versions of international brands like Mercedes-Benz, with whom Khodro signed agreements to produce both heavy duty trucks and luxury cars, such as the glistening E350, which have already begun to appear in Khodro’s arsenal of product offerings.

In April 2008 Manouchehr Manteqi, Managing Director of Khodro, announced a $575 million jump in revenues, representing a growth of 83%. Iran’s production centers in Tehran, Tabriz, and Khorasan are hoping to produce 520,000, 100,000, and 30,000 cars in the coming year, respectively, to which should be added the company’s overseas plants in Venezuela, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Syria, and Belarus, which plan to add an additional output of 20,000 cars.

Khodro has looked to the Turkish market as an avenue to greater regional production, with 2004 seeing the beginning of operations to export 3,000 cars to this regional neighbor.

Manteqi points to Khodro’s presence on Turkish soil as an indicator that “Iran has met European standards,” and looking forward, Manteqi has plans for his firm “to enter the European market via the Turkish market.”

Khodro will continue to rely on its Turkish partner, MYS Automotive, with the latter’s CEO, Yigit Seskir, noting that the two firms “are still investigating the investment invitations from various regions. For starters, some 35,000 automobiles will be produced.” The total cost of the investment, according to Seskir, ranges between $95 million and $320 million.

Iran’s car production facilities are also expanding to Africa, where Khodro Diesel will export 1,400 buses to Sudan in a deal rumored to be $140 million. The Ivory Coast, Gambia, and Senegal are also on the list of potential manufacturing bases.

However, not all news is good for the Iranian industry. Political confrontation between the country’s government and the US has threatened some of Khodro’s international transactions. Earlier this year, it was reported that various Chinese banks, under pressure from the US, decided to scale down financial operations with Iran, creating a dearth of capital and hindering business between Chinese Chery Auto and Khodro.

Moving production overseas in the hopes of feeding local appetites for low cost cars has pushed Khodro to improve production standards, resulting in higher quality automobiles. As of 2007, its latest model, the Samand Soren, passed the Euro III emission standard, breaking down barriers for entrance into the European auto market. Other improvements in Iranian cars are improved engine performance and gas mileage. In fact, Manteqi hopes to offer a hybrid-engine bus by October 2008.

Further movements into overseas markets are likely to affect Khodro’s production process by manufacturing cars as cheap as possible, but ensuring adherence to international standards so cars can be exported to a range of markets.

Apparently the sky is not high enough for the world’s 13th richest man, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal al-Saud. The multi-billionaire, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $20 billion, last year bought a $320 million double-decker Airbus A380 to serve as his “Flying Palace”.

Now, according to UK-based news reports, Middle East Economic Digest and al-Saud’s Kingdom Holding company website, he is looking to build a very tall building in Jeddah. Rumor has it that the tower will be a mile high. That is 1,600 meters, or just a little over one and a half kilometers. It would be more than twice the height of Burj Dubai, which is currently the tallest man-made structure on earth.

But the prince, Kingdom Holding, and the contractors and companies involved in what Kingdom Holding calls, mysteriously, “The Jeddah Project,” are keeping very quiet about it. Only a single press release on the company’s website, from September 2007, hints of the projects existence. It states the “investment value of the project is estimated at 50 billion Saudi Riyals ($13.4 billion) upon completion,” and it will include “a colossal sky scraper with a surrounding area for other facilities.”

MEED reported in February 2008 that London-based Hyder Consulting is working on a mile-high tower somewhere in the Middle East, but would not confirm where, or for whom.

And in March 2008, the British newspapers Sunday Times and the Daily Mail reported the tower is a reality, and have gone so far as to print pictures and name London-based ARUP Consulting as working on the project. When contacted about the pictures, ARUP replied that the firm is “unable to confirm that we are working on a mile-high building. However, what we can confirm is that we are not working on the building depicted by the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail.

Other firms named in the press release as consultants, contractors and designers refused comment or did not return calls, including US-based Bechtel and Pickard Chilton, and Canadian firm HOK.

How feasible is it?

Architects have proposed mile-high towers for decades. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the gigantic “Illinois” tower in 1956, but it was never built. Until now, the technology to build and operate such a structure simply was not available or too costly. But with today’s technology, and the Burj Dubai pushing the limits and dreams of both architects and wealthy Gulf rulers, what would it take to build one a mile high? David Scott, Chairman of the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and structural engineer and principal at ARUP, said he could talk about building a mile high tower “theoretically,” but said he was unable to comment on any specific project in Saudi Arabia. He said the biggest challenge in the construction process would be “getting materials up there.”

“Concrete would obviously be pumped up,” he said. “If you wanted to go up say two miles, you would just have different pumping stations so that you pump the concrete into another hopper, and pump it up again.”

The same technique would be used for cranes, says Peter Weismantle, Associate Director at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and project architect and technical director on the Burj Dubai tower. He said tower cranes could be “jumped” up the building, using the structure itself for support. The construction might even “use helicopters to place specific elements at high levels.”

“In many cases, because of the great height, lifts would be accomplished in two or more stages,” he explained of the design.

But what about when the tower is complete? Is it practical or efficient to live and work in a mile-high building? How do building managers pump water to the top, and what about washing the windows?

Practical implications extreme height

To start with, designers of towers like the Burj Dubai and the current ‘tallest building’ record holder, the Tapei 101 in Taiwan, have to incorporate numerous maintenance and “mechanical” floors to service the building. Every eighth floor in the Tapei 101 is a such a “mechanical” floor. The Burj Dubai has at least 11 floors out of 160 reserved for this purpose. These floors house elevator equipment and motors, fixed window washing equipment, and water relay stations to pump water up to the higher floors.

As designers must plan for the mechanics of the building, they must also plan to efficiently get people to their destinations. Weismantle coauthored a report last year, titled Burj Dubai: An Architectural Technical Case Study, that states the tower can be likened to a “small vertical city.”

Around 20,000 people may live, work and be visiting the Burj Dubai at any given time. Thus, designers created three different entrances on different sides of the building, for different uses: one entrance for the hotel, one for residents, and one for corporate offices and tourists.  Those three “use areas” are then arranged in clusters in the building. The hotel is located on the lower floors, residences on the middle, and offices toward the top. Hence the elevator systems located at each entrance are planned to efficiently channel people to similar destinations.

And that’s where the elevator planning comes in. The Burj Dubai will have 56 elevators, and the longest elevator shaft in the world, at 500 meters, or 132 floors. But an elevator has not been invented yet that can travel the entire height of the building. The weight of the cables would be too great. Weismantle said the only way to serve all the floors of a mile-high building would be to design a “transfer system, connecting elevators serving separate sections of the building. The building [would] utilize high-speed, nonstop ‘shuttle’ elevators bringing passengers to ‘sky lobby’ floors where they transfer to ‘local’ elevators serving the floors in between.”

Another way to increase efficiency would be to install double-decker high speed elevators, which have been used in skyscrapers for years. Both Scott and Weismantle say speed is not a problem. High rise elevators can currently travel at around 10 to 18 meters per second. That means, in a straight shaft with no transfers, modern elevators can travel one mile in one minute and forty seconds to two minutes. However, to insure passenger comfort (especially to prevent uncomfortable ear popping), the elevator would need to be pressurized if traveling upwards of 12 meters per second.

Scott says elevators without cables are currently in the experimental stages, and may be available in the future if a mile high tower is built. These elevators would use magnetic levitation instead of cables. This would allow for both longer elevator shafts (because there are no cables), and could permit several elevators in the same shaft.

Blowing in the wind

A mile high tower may have more than 300 stories. Scott says wind forces would be “massive,” creating “wobbling” of the structure. This could cause people living or working on the top floors to get motion sickness. One way to dampen the wind affect is to create “outrigger” buildings that help stabilize the structure at the base. Also, at the top of the building, electronic movement sensors can be combined with a giant steel ball to dampen the affects of the wind.

The Tapei 101 addresses the “wobbling problem” with a 606 ton steel ball suspended from the 92nd floor, to counteract the wind forces. Two other 4 ton balls on the 60 meter spire act as stabilizers, and are dampened by springs at the spire’s base.

Emergency a mile high

After the tragedy at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, architects and building designers have studied ways to evacuate buildings more rapidly. That means using elevators for evacuation, and thus certain elevators in the Burj Dubai will be insulated and reinforced to be used as “lifeboats” in an emergency. The high speed elevators would arrive at emergency evacuation points quickly, then descend with passengers, then quickly ascend again to pick up more evacuees.

According Weismantle and his colleagues’ Burj Dubai Report, the “estimated time to fully evacuate the building using stairs and ‘lifeboat’ emergency service was reduced by 46% from that of using stairs alone.” This would be one option to increase the evacuation speed on a mile-high tower.

And while the emergency procedures may never be needed, but in the dusty, humid and sun baked Gulf climate, the mile high tower will definitely need to be cleaned — and often. The Burj Dubai designers tackled this problem by placing the majority of the burden on three window cleaning “machines” running along fixed tracks on the outside of the building’s facade.

Each machine will have “jib arms” that can reach up to 36 meters, allowing it to clean windows to the left and right. Burj Dubai designers estimate it will take 6 to 8 weeks to clean the entire building — meaning a building twice that size would probably take twice as long.

The reasons for building a mile-high tower are many: to gain publicity, bragging rights and to put a city on the map. For architects and engineers like Scott, it is a chance to push the limit and achieve higher than anyone else.

“If I was lucky enough to be asked to design a building like that, I think it would be a great challenge,” he said. “And I think it certainly can be done.”

On March 20, 2008, the first ever authorized in-flight mobile phone call was made from an Emirates Airlines Airbus A340-300 flying at 9,000 meters from Dubai to Casablanca. Passengers were so quick to use the service that an Emirates representative on board meant to make the first call was beaten to it instead — by a matter of seconds — by two speed-dialing passengers.

Airlines in the Middle East see this kind of behavior as confirmation that they are going down the right path by installing the new in-flight mobile phone capability. Emirates has long had in-seat phones available, as have other airlines, but the prohibitive cost, at around $7 per minute, and the credit card swiping hassle made them all but an added decoration to the seat-back for many passengers. But Emirates, catering to the communication hungry business traveler, sees demand for an expanded and convenient in-flight communications package.

“Our customers are already making more than 7,000 calls a month from our in-seat phones,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Emirate’s chairman and chief executive. “So we will be making life easier for those for whom staying in touch has become an important part of their everyday lives.”

Soon, anyone will be able to make and receive mobile phone calls, send text messages, check their email, and, eventually, surf the internet at cruising altitude, and from their own mobile phone, blackberry, or laptop computer. The price of a call will be about the same as a roaming international call — at the cheaper cost of around $4 per minute, according to the service providers.

The charges will appear on the passenger’s monthly mobile bill but the per-minute fee will vary, depending on the service agreement between individual mobile companies and the in-flight mobile service providers, OnAir and Aeromobile.

Aeromobile has integrated the traditional in-seat satellite phone technology, called “Inmarsat Classic Aero,” into a kind of mini mobile phone network. OnAir uses Inmarsat’s upgraded “Swiftbroadband” technology, which offers greater bandwidth and internet browsing capability. Both companies have started installing and testing the equipment after gaining approval from international transportation and communication regulators, and from mobile phone network operators.

Overcoming the technological hurdles

Until recently, the usage of mobile phones in airplanes had been banned for two reasons. First, airline regulators worried mobile phone signals could interfere with an aircraft’s navigation equipment and other sensitive onboard computers.

Second, mobile phone companies feared jets flying overhead filled with chatting passengers would jam or interfere with ground networks, resulting in dropped calls and reduced system capacity.

Now, OnAir and Aeromobile have overcome these concerns — at least enough to satisfy both transportation and communication authorities and the network owners in around 40 countries. They have done it by setting up an isolated wireless mobile network inside the aircraft.

“The analogy actually is to consider that once you get on an Aeromobile equipped aircraft, you’re actually traveling to a new country, and you’re roaming into that country — and that country can actually fly anywhere in the world, wherever that airplane goes,” said David Coiley, AeroMobile’s Vice President of External Relations.

The mini mobile network works like this: inside the cabin, a wireless mobile signal is broadcast like a wireless internet network. The network sends calls to an on-board ‘base station’ modem, where the signal is translated from GSM to Internet Protocol signals. The IP signal is then beamed from the aircraft’s satellite antenna to one of Inmarsat’s satellites. The satellite sends the call to a dedicated ground station, where the call is converted back into a GSM signal and routed to its destination. Receiving a call works in the reverse order. Coiley says the whole process takes about a quarter of a second on average.

It’s still an electronic device

The new regulations will allow mobiles to be used only above 3,000 meters, and, like all electronic devices, never during take off or landing. Passengers are told when it is safe to turn on their mobile devices by a crew announcement. When phones are switched on, they are automatically connected to the aircraft’s network and the customer is greeted with a text message. Dialing a number is the same as making an international call on the ground.

The airborne wireless network prevents mobiles from interfering with the aircraft’s computer systems, since phones emit potentially dangerous electromagnetic waves when they’re searching for a network.

And as Coiley noted, this also keeps the phones from trying to connect to ground based networks below. “It’s actually irrelevant if you’re flying over this country or that country… and irrelevant in terms of what you’re paying,” he said. “We are in this isolated country that does not interfere with the country below it in terms of communications.”

With the currently installed technology, the number of possible simultaneous calls is limited. Each base station has a channel, and on the Inmarsat Classic network, each channel can handle between six and twelve calls at the same time. Most planes will only have one channel. Even the most advanced technology, the Inmarsat SwiftBroadband system, can only handle 12 to 24 callers at once, so the entire plane will not be chatting away mid-flight.

Still restricted, but growing

Currently, one will be hard pressed to find a flight with the new technology. Emirates is only flying one aircraft with the mobile in-flight capability. Routes over Chinese and US airspace cannot use them, as those countries’ regulatory agencies have not yet approved the use of any mobile technology on aircraft.

But in the next year, one can expect to start seeing, and hearing, more mobile phones on flights around the Middle East and Europe. The European Union has cleared the way for passengers to use their mobiles in-flight, with Air France currently flying one plane using OnAir’s technology on European routes.

As the Middle East trailblazer, Emirates Airlines plans to invest $27 million dollars to fit its fleet with Aeromobile systems, which cost around $200,000 dollars each, while OnAir is also contracting with Royal Jordanian and Oman Air. In January, Kuwait-based Jazeera Airlines announced plans to equip its fleet of Airbus A320s with OnAir’s in-flight mobile technology by 2009.

“We are excited to be one of the first airlines in the world to install the technology that allows travelers to use their mobile phones during flight, “ Jazeera Chairman and CEO Marwan Boodai said in a statement. “The new service will be available to all passengers for a fee, and will empower passengers to continue communicating with their families or their office while on board.”

Jazeera’s service will “allow unlimited text messages and emails including attachments to be received and sent, and will allow up to 12 simultaneous voice calls,” the company said in a statement.

Air-phone? Air-rage

But maybe not all the passengers are as excited as Jazeera’s Chairman. According to an International Airline Passengers Association survey of 1,500 European and North American airline passengers conducted last June, 45% of respondents said that a person in the seat next to them making a call was “highly annoying,” 10% higher than a wailing infant. Only 5% said a passenger making a call in the next seat was not annoying at all.

But the Middle East may be different. According to YouGovSiraj’s MENA wide research study last November, 47% of business travelers “want complete freedom to use mobiles phones” on an airline, and “43% of leisure travelers want the same.”

Regardless of the regional passenger approval of the technology, Aeromobile and OnAir have put flight crews in direct control of the systems. Pilots can turn the network off during night flights to prevent possible conflicts between passengers who want to talk and those who want to sleep. They can also switch it into text-only mode, or data-only mode. The pre-flight announcement will also plead with passengers to turn off their ring tones by putting the phones in “silent” mode.

Having the ability to make phone calls from an airplane may encourage passengers to switch off their phones at take off and landing. Studies indicate that up to 50% of phones are left on during normal flights. Moreover, the new technology will help to limit potentially dangerous, illegal calls already taking place on flights. A Carnegie Mellon study indicated that in the US, every flight already has one to four calls being made from the aircraft.

Those illegal calls and text messages will probably continue for some time, as airlines estimate the mobile service will not be available on all aircraft until one to four years. Installing in-flight mobile phone technology takes about three days, and can be done during already scheduled aircraft inspections and repairs.