 Hello and welcome to day one of the World Economic Forum here in Davos. Well here at Davos we like to have little breakout sessions where perhaps ideas can develop and this is one of them. A half hour in which we're allowed to explore some perhaps new territory, territory which isn't touched on very often when you're talking about business or politics. Now in this session what we're going to do is talk about physics and chemistry and perhaps how those topics can be used to solve some of the problems that the world is facing today. Joining me here for this session is Alma Sowale who is a noble laureate and really your background or what you teach is physics and chemistry. You come from Egypt so there's plenty to say about that world of politics and what's happening there. Let me ask you first of all when you see what's happening in the world of economics which is causing a fundamental rethink. Do you draw on your scientific background to come up with some solutions in your own more mathematical way? I don't know if I can come up with some solutions but I can reflect on it. I do think that the gap between the half and the half knots now is so huge that we all have to think about new ways of how to help the half knots. I think it's not new to you and your audience that 80% of the population on this planet Earth are in the half knots. Less than $2 a day or about. And so we have to find new ways and in my views science is critical for this. You advise Barack Obama, he's just given his State of the Union address in which he talks about exactly this, about fairness. But it's not just about giving to half knots, it's about empowering them. A new belief that comes through education. Exactly. If you look on some recent statistics right now, more than 500 million children on this planet Earth will not be able to go to school. And so if you are going to have economic development in the world, you can't have it in the world market of today as we're seeing in Davos without empowering these people with some education. And so it's not a question really of just giving them money or aids. I think we should work very hard through a partnership. I've written some of my writings. It's a true partnership from the developed world into the developing world. Science is a big topic. I know that's where you think much of the teaching needs to be done, but what aspects of science do you think are particularly empowering? Well, let me just give you a concrete example. You know, the United States, there are estimates by some fellow economists in the world of today that the war in Iraq cost something about four trillions. Let's say one trillion. And that's a thousand billion dollars. Imagine if we took 10% of this, which is 100 billion. And just for the region, for example, in the Middle East, what we could have done was 100 billions in ways of education, centers of excellence in science, trying to help these people to empower them, solve some problems in energy, water resources, reform of education of the 21st century. So it seems to me it's not a question of money really. It's a question if we are very serious and sincere about... It's a question of reprioritizing. Exactly. And being determined to solve the problem. Does education have a role to play in diplomacy? Oh, there is no doubt. And in fact, I have written an article called Science in Diplomacy because I think that if we can get diplomacy to be as a strong utilizing education as we will do, let's say with the military forces that we provide, it seems to me we will have a better world than what we have. Do you have a more concrete idea of how that would work? Is it a transfer of information, a transfer of expertise? How do you go into countries, developing countries, poorer countries, and start teaching people when perhaps their needs sometimes are even more basic than that? Well, you know, I'm reminded by a statement that Nehru made when somebody, this is more than 50 years ago, and somebody stand up to Nehru and said, how can you speak about building the Indian institutes of technology and we don't have clean water? And Nehru's answer is something to the fact that the reason we don't have clean water is because we don't have science. And so it seems to me it's a vicious cycle in the sense that unless we really empower these people and improve on the way that they can do this, whether you're in Africa or in Asia or Latin America, I think we'll be staying in the same situation. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, you're from Egypt. Egypt is a country which has a very large young population. And as course as we know has been through a very difficult turbulence period which is not done yet, not by any manner of means. How would you use education there? Well, first of all, I wouldn't say that it's very difficult. Actually, I'm very optimistic about Egypt. Today is the anniversary of the revolution. And if you see, if you read history and find out what happens usually after revolutions, it's very ugly. And I'm sure you're familiar with, in Europe, with the French Revolution and the like. I think despite all of this difficulty that took place in Egypt, it seems to me still, as we say in physics, the slope is positive. It's still going in the right direction. And I think Egypt will get out of this. But better democracy, we just yesterday or day before yesterday, had the first elected parliament in more than 50 years. But would you now be going into Egypt at this time of great change and saying what we need is education and science even now? I'll give you a personal story about this. For 12 years I've tried with the old regime to get education and science as a priority in the country. Since I received the prize in 1999. And we got nowhere. It was only after the revolution last year that in fact we have now a whole new city called Zuhel City of Science and Technology. And it's going into new areas of education. It's going into the modern age of the 21st century. The government has approved a special decree for it. The young people are very excited. And the Egyptian people are donating money. We collect up to now close to a billion Egyptian pounds. So it's not bad. What was the response in Egypt from the political elite to you getting the prize? Well, you know, you would be surprised. And this is not to put a block for Egypt. But my son, who's at Georgetown in the United States, he always reminds me that the way the Egyptians receive a scientist is like a rock star. It's not in the Western world. Scientists don't give this high level of appreciation. But in Egypt maybe it's a historic. Maybe for a variety of reasons. People still value very, very much. So the day I was receiving the prize in Stockholm, they tell me there wasn't too many people on the streets in Cairo. Do scientists need to be made into rock stars all over the world, do you think? I mean, you know, if you go to somewhere like Germany, doctors are revered, I think, a little bit more than they might be elsewhere in Europe. Especially England. Well, I'll tell you, this is one of my concerns. As you know, I live both in the West and the East. I think that's one of my concerns about the West. I think there's a feeling in the West that we now have the end of the knowledge and we don't need to invest in knowledge anymore. And I think this is something that... Well, I think that's something now, perhaps this week, that people will be convinced that is not the case. I mean, from an economic point of view, we're at the end of an era where there's been enormous, for example, the rise of China has kept inflation down and growth high. Global growth higher. We've seen enormous developments in the world of telecommunications with the internet, the centre of that. And that's kept productivity high, inflation low, and growth high. But we're coming to the end of that era now. Do you think physics or chemistry have the next wave of innovation to offer, such that we can propel the world economy forward? Yeah, I'll answer. This is an important question. I'll answer this, but let me just say that where you're seeing people are interested in going into science and the engineering is in Asia. And in countries like Egypt, actually. But on the other hand, in UK and in USA, the numbers is dropping, as a matter of fact. So there is some concern there. Now, regarding your questions, many, many books have been written about the... Can I just stop you there? I have a worry about your microphone not working. Is it working now? Yes? No, it's not working. Maybe that's a signal to end the problem. Exactly. We have a real-life failure of science. Okay, so let's pick up then. You were talking about perhaps the lack of glamour attached to engineering. Well, there is... books and books have been written about the end of science and the idea that we are at the end of the roads in certain areas. I frankly give it very little weight. I think that what is really incredible about science is the unpredictability of science. And I've written a piece in Nature about the issue that it's all in curiosity. If you give the right education and you are curious, you will find somebody that's 26 years old or 22 years old and coming up with a brand new idea that might transform the world that neither you nor I have thought about it. So that you can't say in the ocean of knowledge that there will be an end, for example, for this or that. We have no idea. Let me give you an example. Do you know that more than 98% of our universe is dark? We don't know much about it. So we only know less than 2%, including galaxies and stars and the like, all the planets, everything. It's only less than 2% that we know. So the discoveries are really up to once you educate the people in the right direction and you plan to the elements of innovation, you will always find new things in science. What about all of this particle physics that we're seeing at the moment, neutrinos and such like? It's really hard for a lot of people to understand why that's relevant to them. Is particle physics relevant to us? Apart from the fact that we wouldn't be able to stand up unless we had it. Well, again, it's a good question, but I would say this. I would say that knowledge per se is extremely important if you're thinking about investment in the future. Because any person who will tell you, including Nobel Prize winners, that they know what's going to come, perhaps more than 10 years ahead of time, is not really, they don't know. We don't have a crystal ball to know that. So we don't know if there is going to be a new particle that will be discovered that will revolutionize the sources of energy that we are looking for. We have no idea. We don't know what is the origin of our species. We might discover something at very high energy. So knowledge for the sake of knowledge we have to invest in. But if you're asking me with particle physics tomorrow to reduce something for the benefits of health or energy, tomorrow I'm not really sure. But we have to invest in it. Okay. Are there any questions immediately coming from you? Yes, gentlemen. If you could tell me where you're from and your name and stuff. My name is Miki Panpan. I live in the US. Do you have a lot of response in Egypt? Young brands. Yeah. Firstly, thank you, Professor, for your comments. The question is about the students that you see today as you teach in college. Compared to the time students, the time when you were a student, I guess in 40 years ago, in terms of capability and their attitude, do you see that? It wasn't, it was 20 years ago. So, no, I think you're right actually. It depends which stage you're talking about. Has there been a change in, well, you know, it's always nostalgia. You know, we always go back and say we were better than our business. So it's very hard to answer this objectively. But I'll tell you one thing from a personal experience. I was involved in the Egyptian Revolution. I saw what's happening in Tahrir Square. You asked me two months before the revolution about Egyptian youth. I would have told you all kind of things about, you know, they are not like our old generations and this and that. But when you sit with these people and you saw what they have done and by way of what they used in the information technology and how disciplined they were, you will have to tip your hat. So I think every generation have their own way of doing things. And I think that's the way we probably survive as a species. Yes, please. Hi, I'm Mohamed Al-Hawam from Egypt. I'm Mohamed Al-Hawam from Egypt and I run a social enterprise that focuses on education from 6 to 12. And the more we study the curriculums that are there in different countries, the more we find that it pushes students to not practice critical thinking. It's very restricting because it's very, there's one answer. It's at the end of the book and you're not supposed to look at it. And when you make it an alternative international system, it's very expensive to be honest, to make it based on mentorship and an open curriculum. So do you have any idea how can we develop critical thinking in a cost-effective manner that is not expensive? Because if you look at around the countries that are doing that, they're spending a lot of money in there. How can we make something cost-effective? You would be intrigued on this council of President Obama. One of the things, we are a small group and one of the things is critical for our study, is also critical thinking of American students. In other words, the problem is not only in the developing world, it's even in the developed world because why? The inventions are huge. You're talking about Wikipedia and you're talking about Myspace and so on. So the education that we use to the blackboard, the whiteboard, all of that stuff is gone. My son, before he went to college, if he wants to solve a quadratic equation, he just put it in the computer even without thinking. And we used to do it by hand and think about it and so on. So you will have to develop in new ways. And I have seen new experiments in Malaysia, in Turkey, that are outstanding. And you have to develop, for example, I've seen one in Turkey where you actually sit down and you see the actual experiment of Isaac Newton as the apple coming down in you, but you are in a virtual laboratory. You really have to rethink about all of this in the traditional way. I'll essentially go on right now. Yes, please. This gentleman here. My name is Salim Ali. I'm a professor of environmental science at the University of Vermont. And I'm interested in this issue of religion and science because as a Muslim American and someone who firmly believes in scientific enterprise, I find it very challenging working with my fellow Muslims on some of the more difficult but fundamental issues in science and the most notable example is evolution. Mainstream Muslims still refuse to work with evolution even though there are, of course, several clerics who will be willing to move forward. And you get marginalized, you get ostracized even by bringing it up and you can't even advance in fundamental biology without working on it. So how are you dealing with that? Well, it is a fundamental issue. The basis of it, again, is in education. But again, I want to remind you that I live in America, as you know, and in Kansas there was a vote by the board not to teach evolution. So it's every place you're going to go through. I was just going to say it's not just Islam. I think the difference is that in those cases you will have a majority consensus in the other communities which will marginalize those extremists. But in Islam we're talking about the dominant majority which will actually push you out. I think there are two forces that will change that and I'm very hopeful about that. A is that the Muslim world is living and have lived for a long time under dictatorship and the used religion in order to get their own way. I think when you have true democracies and exchange of ideas and this and that, you will have the majority and the minority there. I think the second point which is extremely important to the Muslim world is education. Education in the Muslim world is not up to the standards of what used to be thousand years ago. And so there are documents, there are lack of understanding, there's a confusion about what said in Quran. All of this has to be clarified. And the hopeful sign that I can tell you that when somebody speaks, at least I have seen this in my experience, in the Muslim world and speaks to the mind and in a fair way, people receive that very well. So I do think that that can change. Yes, please. Another one from this side. This lady back here. So you mentioned before that in the United States there has been a plateauing and in fact in certain areas a drop off and interest by students in pursuing science, technology and mirroring in that. I'm interested to know if you have any ideas or observations where you've seen it work in places through your travels, things that you could implement in the United States. For example, I know some schools are trying to have more practical applications at the high school or primary school level, but I don't know which ones work. Strategies to get people interested. Right. Well, as you know, I'm sure it begins with the school itself. There are two aspects of this, at least thinking about it quickly. One is that teachers at school now in the United States are not truly well equipped with the beauty of science and why you teach science. And I think you have to completely change the situation. You need to be paid better and trained well. Finland, for example, a teacher in science, take a sabbatical and go and learn about the modern science that's happening. So that's really one aspect. I think the second aspect is the leadership in the country. I think I arrived in the States in 69 when President Kennedy was saying we are going to the moon and everybody wanted to go to science at the time or essentially everybody wanted to go to science. But when now Wall Street comes first and making money comes first and all of that stuff, you're not going to get science. Do you now have an opportunity, given that Wall Street is a little bit out of favor? I have to be careful in what company I say that. There's a rethink going on, so there's an opportunity, isn't it? I think so. And we're seeing some of it. We're seeing some of it that people don't want really to go into that direction and get back. But I think it has to be in the leadership at the very high level to really believe in the value of knowledge and science. Yes, please, from this side. Yes, please, sir. I want to touch on the area point you made about... Your name? I'm Gregory Roxton. I'm a student at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Touch on the area point you made on the younger generation. Now, I've always believed that there's been a switch from the mechanical optimism of older generations to more of the fighting optimism of my generation. And we saw that in the Arab Spring. But on the question of leadership, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you were in our generation that you think we can use to help and make our lives better? Yeah, well, don't be all in that position. That's right. Lots of things. We would need another half an hour to cover this. But as I said before, I think for every generation they have their own language, their own way of doing things. The important thing are the fundamentals of education. If you are in Africa, if you are in the U.K., if you are in the U.S., there are fundamentals that you have to learn. For example, even I complain about this a lot in the Arab world. They don't respect time. I work with time on the femtosecond, so it's very, very short. But, you know, you give an appointment to somebody and they might be late one hour and think of that sort. I think all of this comes as a result of educational, cultural changes, but it would be a mistake. And some people have written about that. It would be a mistake to think that it's a genetic in origin and that this generation cannot change or this people cannot change. Yes, please. Another one from this side? Yes, please. Jaime, you could say your name and where you're from. Yes, Elizabeth Estee from the United States, as a congressional candidate, thinking very much about these issues and one of the reasons I'm running is great concern about the hostility to science, actually, that we're seeing in the political class right now. So some observations of what we do when the politics are, in fact, anti-science and there isn't support, as we see right now, for even basic research and development, which I think is going to be critical to, as you said, the man on the moon, any sort of political leadership is going to have to, I think, elevate science and that will require politicians to not attack it. Could you give me a justification as to how you see it as being attacked? Certainly. I mean, the House of Representatives called for cuts and basic research and development. So just, I mean, out and out saying we are not supporting science. This is not important for us to do. We are not going to support aid money abroad that would be building schools that would be facilitating exactly what you were describing, diverting not temperatures, what we're talking about. Do you think that's austerity or do you think it's a political attack? Oh, it's a political attack. I mean, that's actually very contrary to what Bush was doing, which was quite the reverse, wasn't it? Wasn't he trying to spearhead scientific development? So do you think it's this administration is what I'm asking about? No, I'm not saying the administration. I think there's actually, currently in the Republican Party, at least in the House of Representatives, there is an anti-science stream. Oh, interesting. We're seeing it reflected in the bakes right now on the Republican side that there's still a bit of science. Well, from what I know, I know that the fact that the White House and certainly the leadership of President Obama is very much interested in support of science and the feel, the President himself feels, that there will be a serious problem as far as innovation in America if we were to cut in the support even of basic science. But the problem, as you mentioned, comes in the Congress. I'm not sure it's a hostility to be fair, but I think what it is is that they want to cut across the board. So they will say 20% across the board. But as everybody knows, if you want to maintain your innovation, you cannot cut education to the same extent as you will do with other, I think. So I think there got to be a realization that you will not go forward unless you invest really in the knowledge of the future. And other countries are doing that very well. And that's a scary part of it. Yes, please. Any other questions from over here? I think there was somebody here. Any other questions? My name is Linda Montgomery. I'm a communications consultant for pharmaceutical companies. I have a slight problem with what we tell students to do once they've finished their science training. Working for a research and development to our chemistry graduates, it's hard for them to get jobs now. I have a nephew who's just about to finish studying physics. And we have an education issue in the UK where they're being offered to pay off your student grant to 20,000 if you go into teaching. He has a fantastic physics brain. Is that almost a waste? It's hard. Yeah, what happens if you educate people but you don't have the jobs to offer them? Are we not telling them where to go once they have that degree? Well, you know, it's a very serious problem. And in fact, if you take the developing world, it's even worse. Because if you look at the number of people graduating, Egypt has 90 million, roughly, 90 million now. As I said, at least 30%. I mean, there are certainly millions who are university graduates, but they don't have jobs. But it seems to me this short-sighted because on the part of the administration, because if you look in places like China, for example, 1.3 billion, and everybody would have said that you can't find jobs for these people. Yet they develop programs in energy. They develop programs in land cultivation. They develop programs in small businesses. So all of these graduates can be really in useful function. And that's why there is the outsourcing right now to China and essentially in every industry. So it seems to me it's a critical that the leadership at the top be thinking not only in reforming the education but also finding the new avenues that you can proceed with. I hope I haven't got anybody off, but I think there we must leave it. I'm getting the nod from behind. Thank you so much, everybody, for joining. There has, I think, been some consensus that education needs promoting, but also you're right in saying, of course, you can't educate people and then not give them just jobs but also jobs to which they should aspire. So we need to be rock stars. Thank you very much indeed. That's a good note. Thank you.