|  By
Fereydoun Tassmili
If
this was not the strangest scene, then it definitely could rank
as one of the most absurd. Here we were sitting at a conference
room table, inside a carpet shop, discussing the technological possibilities
in Iran. My daughter pointed at a magnificent carpet through a glass
divider and whispered to me, "Do you like that one?" "Do
I like it?" I said, "There is not a single carpet that
I don’t like in this shop." Seated at the table were
several successful Iranian Silicon Valley entrepreneurs representing
a variety of disciplines from biotechnology to information technology.
We all have our own dreams. Like connecting Iranian universities
to the U.S. by satellite, setting up venture capital funds in Iran,
helping Iranian university graduates with their business plan and
so on. Alas none of these were practical due to the current trade
sanctions against Iran.
In our visit to Malaysia a few years ago and their Vision 2020 program
we learned that by the year 2020 Malaysia aspires to become a fully
developed country based on technology the foundation of this goal
lies in a strong commitment to an indigenous science and technology
program. I thought to myself, "How can Iran catch up with a
country like Malaysia?" Maybe there is hope. Since the under
twenty-five population alone in Iran outnumbers Malaysia’s
entire population of 22 million, Iran can overcome the problem of
brain drain.
After oil, educated professionals are the largest export from Iran.
According to the Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mustafa
Moin, some 220,000 leading academic elites and industrialists left
Iran for Western countries in 2000. And he did not think that these
Iranians would return. UNHCR ranks Iranians among the top five applicants
for political asylum in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Holland, and
the United Kingdom. By some account the income of Iranians in the
U.S. alone surpasses the revenue Iran earns from oil. How do these
statistics bode for the future of technology in Iran?
A few years ago I got involved with the Science and Arts Foundation
whose goal is technological empowerment in the Middle East. In the
process I met several entrepreneurs and many young students from
Iran. I had heard about their academic accomplishments, but I often
wondered how they kept up with the rapid pace of technological change
given their limited resources and poor facilities. Then I ran into
Rouzbeh, a student at Sharif University. I found him bright, driven,
and extremely in-tune with technological trends. He later single
handedly pushed the standards for Farsi UNICODE through AINC (Arabic
Internet Name Consortium) at a time when all Persian language needs
were about to be bypassed. Now he has become a driving engine not
only for Farsi, but Arabic UNICODE standards too.
Concert Hall
I
often hear of great software development efforts. Earlier in the
year, I saw a demonstration of a software developed in Iran that
could rival WebEx - a web-based collaboration and presentation service.
A few years ago I heard about a Ph.D. student who had formed a company
in Oromieh who, at the time, had designed the fastest A/D D/A VLSI
chip. He actually marketed his technology to a large Japanese company.
In the last issue, I interviewed Mahmoud Nazzari the founder of
System Group that has turned a three-man company into a multi million-dollar
software business with nearly 400 employees. In spite of all difficulties,
remarkable strides have been made. However, many hurdles still remain.
Robocup Team in Japan
In July at Robocop 2002 held in Fukuoka Japan I ran into Arash,
the team leader and 2nd place winner in the Coach Simulation league.
He is another aspiring young graduate who started a company developing
Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) cores. The FPGA core is a programmable
logic scheme that has revolutionized the industry by allowing users
to implement thousand of gates of logic in a single IC in a matter
of seconds. After scraping together some money from friends and
family he formed a company with a couple of classmates but soon
ran into the reality of "sanctions". While using the online
help forum from Altera, a developer of tool kits for FPGA, he received
an email notifying him that their IP address had been traced to
Iran. The message explained that in accordance with U.S. laws, Altera
would not be able to continue its support. Undeterred, they pushed
ahead, solved the problem on their own, and actually came up with
a product.
I saw the repercussions of trade sanctions first hand in Japan when
one of the team leaders approached a company to purchase a motor
control IC for their robots. When the Japanese sales person realized
the team was from Iran, he said in an apologetic tone that unfortunately
he would not be able to sell them anything. But the team leader
was not about to give up. He explained that although we may not
have the fastest servos, they can’t stop us from working on
our algorithms. We will beat them with our smarts.
Technology over the last decade has been primarily driven by three
factors: youth, motivated technologically-skilled human resources,
easy access to capital, and an incredible one-two punch opportunity
driven first by the PC and then followed by the Internet. The Iranian
population, by all accounts, is one of the youngest in the world.
According to some estimates 270,000 university graduates are entering
the job market every year. In addition, Iran is the only country
in the Middle East that has been able to integrate women into the
educational system so effectively that now more women attend universities
than men. Since many seek opportunities in other countries, and
see technology as their saving grace, they try to keep up their
skills using Internet and obtaining some form of professional certification
(i.e. MCSE, CCNA). In fact by some estimates there are over 19,000
certified professionals in Iran who mostly have obtained their certifications
in Dubai. In fact, universities that traditionally saw demands for
medical, civil and architectural fields, now say that information
technology is the most sought after field.
Another
major shortcoming is the availability of capital in Iran. While
most Iranian financiers understand the investment in a textile factory,
they have a difficult time when it comes to a technology project.
I’ll never forget years ago trying to explain to my mother
what the company I had founded was doing. We were developing a smart
telephone switch. She gave me a puzzled look and asked me why I
didn’t want to build and sell houses. Some claim that the
problem still exists. Most people cannot see the value in something
they cannot hold or touch.
However, most academics and businessmen living in Iran that I have
talked with see a bright future for three reasons. The first and
foremost is the large pool of young, motivated and technologically
adept talent available. This is something that does not exist in
any of the other courtiers in the area. Second, Iran is one of the
largest IT markets in the region. I heard of one confidential report
by a large European ERP company that ranks the market opportunity
in Iran near the top in Asia. Lastly, the most important factor
that makes the future bright is the Iranian expatriates. In Sweden
alone, Iranians are among the largest immigrant groups. At the end
of 2000, 52,038 Iranian-born individuals resided in Sweden. Twenty-five
years earlier there were 998. The United States has been a destination
for hundreds of thousands of highly educated professional Iranians.
By all accounts, most are successful and those who have engaged
in technology businesses have also done well. Once the conditions
become opportune, the impact expatriates can and will have will
be profound - making up for much of the shortcomings Iran has experienced
over the last 23 years.
I talked to Arash a few weeks ago. He said he has had to deal with
many obstacles marketing his technology. Nevertheless, he is still
hopeful. "I still think that if we work hard and try our best
God will help us. Then again, maybe I am mistaken," Arash said,
before we said goodbye.
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