“Sorena Sattari” is known with various characteristics. However, one of his most important characteristics is his sayings in contrast to the habits of government authorities, both when he said “the value of the youth who can cause economic developments is more than being wasted as government employees” and when he stated: “the number of students inside the country has grown 26 times. However, the main question is that why did it not have any impact on gross domestic product (GDP)?”

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs quoted by the news and analytical center of technology and innovation, “Sorena Sattari” is known with various characteristics. However, one of his most important characteristics is his sayings in contrast to the habits of government authorities, both when he said “the value of the youth who can cause economic developments is more than being wasted as government employees” and when he stated: “the number of students inside the country has grown 26 times. However, the main question is that why did it not have any impact on gross domestic product (GDP)?” To answer this question, he expressed: we have inaccurately defined scientific growth in the country. Even our definition of industry growth in the country is also wrong. Our definition of scientific growth is writing articles, whereas the budget of this act must be paid by the government.

Interview with the 45-year-old president, who was a student in Sharif University of Technology from BSc to PhD in the field of mechanical engineering, was carried out on two major areas: first, if the pace of scientific growth of Iran has been decreased or stopped? And Do Iranian students emigrate from the country and Iran has the highest rate of brain drain?

Sorena Sattari, who was able to achieve the first-rank symbol of art from the Supreme Leader due to designing Azarakhsh fighter aircraft, emphasized: the “global innovation index” must be the criteria for evaluation of the scientific growth of the country, which requires the establishment of a business ecosystem. The same environment in which “Digikala”, “Snap” or “Tap30” are formed. In the beginning of 90s, there might have been a low number of people believing in the role of startups in the development of the economy of Iran. However, today, the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, Hassan Rouhani, and the national elites foundation regarded this area as the foundation for reverse emigration of Iranian elites, the most important causes of which are explained below: 

Some reports on the scientific development of the country were announced in the ninth and 10^th governments. Nevertheless, there have been some concerns in the 11^th government regarding the decreased scientific growth of the society. You have been the vice president for science and technology affairs from the beginning of the 11^th government. Has the scientific growth of Iran really decreased, compared to the government of Ahmadinejhad? How is the scientific growth of a country really estimated to be able to compare it to previous presidential rounds?

We had 270 thousand students in the beginning of the Islamic revolution, including one hundred thousand living abroad and 170 thousand inside the country. Currently, there are four million and 700 thousand students inside the country and 48 thousand students outside the country. This means that the number of students inside the country has increased 27 times. However, the main question is that why this increased number has had no impact on growth domestic product (GDP)? Wherever you go in the world, increase of 20-30% in the number of students is associated with improved GDP. But why no such phenomenon has occurred in Iran? We need to ask that why the increased number of students has had no significant impact on the economy and daily life of our people?

To answer this question, we need to say that this lack of effect is interpreted as inaccurate training models used to expand higher education, which is being followed up. In this regard, one of the reasons might be the fact that since the beginning, the concept of university has been introduced to the life of people as a foreign concept. Imagine that this model has come from France or another place in the world and has had no interactions with the society or industry. We entered a system with the syllabus and professors, who were graduates of other countries, to Iran. The actual position of university, which is affecting and changing the society and improving it, has been realized in our community.

What does it have to do with the scientific rank of Iran before and after the 11^th government?

Because we have an inaccurate definition of scientific growth in the country. The same applies to our industry. We are another system and a country with five thousand years of history and we need to localize our university system. We must have our own local economy and industry. We cannot enter a production line from outside to the country and think that industry is supposed to work with universities. Today, we are training PhD students with government money, which means that we neither see the industry nor the people. Last year, we have had the highest scientific growth despite our definition of growth, which is writing articles. When I was appointed this position, our global innovation index (GII) was 121, which has improved to 75 and we hope to have more improvement by 2019. We have an ecosystem for such index, in which the environment of business, economy, and various systems in the economy are evaluated and applied along with human resource and their creativity status. In the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, our goal has not been the increase of scientific growth of the country but rather achieving an accurate model. For instance, how education can be turned into economy. Now compare this method to the method of presenting articles as scientific rank. In this regard, we have ranked first among 15 countries. In addition, we have ranked 10^th, 46^th, 40^th and below 10^th in areas of engineering, humanities, art and medicine, respectively. In nanotechnology have been ranked fourth regarding article production. Can we do more with government money? We write articles that have no applications in the country and just waste the time of our youth and there is no domestic market for them.

What are the benefits of this method you consider to recognize the scientific rank of Iran that cannot be observed in article production?

When this government is formed, it brings money and asset. When there are companies established based on knowledge, they can invest in universities.

The same has occurred in our universities lately. There is an ecosystem established by the private sector near Sharif University of Technology. There are some companies around this university which has increased the cost of lands in this area by 30%. According to the latest statistics, there are 253 companies and four thousand and 800 people in this ecosystem. In addition, numerous buildings have been built in this area by the private sector, which has come to invest on students.

The basic discussion of startups is that how can we have companies that do not have physical static but have knowledge static. This is what must happen, and we have aimed to create this type of ecosystem in the country. In research, we need ecosystem and not money and must realize that government money does not have effectiveness in research. No such ecosystem can be formed unless we understand that private investment is required to have this type of ecosystem.

As the vice president for science and technology affairs, what measures have you taken for establishment of this ecosystem?

On my first days, I ordered a report to be presented by the best Iranian youth working in “Silicon Valley”. The main question was that why higher education has failed to affect our economy? Why have our universities failed to create developments? Or why is there only one “Silicon Valley” in America and not, for example, in Dubai? How can our educational system be turned into a dynamic and flexible system? We asked these questions to say that how innovation and problem solving on a global scale can be ideal for the youth? What type of economic, legal and financial infrastructures are required for creation of a business environment for innovative and knowledge-based activities? How can be establish environments as growth centers in various areas of the country not to be captured by rents and bureaucracy? The answer to all of these questions is one word: “ecosystem”, which we do not have.

With regard to their explanations, does the government has the same intentions?

No. On the first days, the government and the system of universities had a negative attitude toward this outlook. Everyone say what happened to our research budget? Unfortunately, we have created organizations that receive salary from the government. At this point, increased research budget is turned into wage and income. Currently, there are some research centers in the government system that claim that they have no money to perform research but have two thousand employees and 400-500 faculty members. In all of these systems, from the ministry of agriculture to oil and energy, all have research centers and all receive wages and salaries. These are wrong and have no output. These research centers were actually established to solve the problems of their organization and not “performing knowledge boarder research”. When there was universities and companies, they were not support to do research. My thinking model toward research is simple, which is either research or knowledge boarder and will have no clients until 5-10 next years. Therefore, their costs must be provided by the government. However, the government must not interfere in this area at all and the ecosystem must be involved. This ecosystem has been developed in advanced countries in a way that it is actually involved in the spatial and defense areas as well. Therefore, we will only witness the formation of luxurious and large buildings, towers and research centers, which will have no benefit for us unless we establish a relevant ecosystem.

It seems that the condition of fields of engineering and medicine is must better and the government is faced with human knowledge crisis.

The whole system acts like this when there is no ecosystem. In medicine, one of the most important problems is that it is significantly affected by clinical discussions and there is a great number of studies involved. Over the past years, we have aimed to change this behavior. However, this is related to the modification of a part of policies. However, specifically in human sciences, we have some of the most prominent people in terms of establishment of startups. Those individuals who are recognized as engineers and have MSc in human science fields and know about both parties very well.

Human science has currently an important status in the area of startups. In fact, the section that creates money is human sciences and you can see that how content startups work in Iran. However, we need to change our behavior as well. In the world, elites study law and economy. In Iran, they study electricity and computer, which is a third-world behavior. Why does the electricity field of Sharif University has the best students? Because exceptional students do not study electricity in the world. The structure of the educational system of Iran is defected. There must be serious modifications applied to this educational system, which is not easy and not related to one unit.

Since day one, we separated a small part of the economic system of the country and named it knowledge based. Today, there are more than three thousand knowledge-based companies. Here, our aim has been the establishment of a business environment and knowledge-based companies. There are more than 110 services provided by these knowledge-based companies, a part of which is customs and tax exemptions and a part is related to military service and educations in this regard. Our main problem in the area of entrepreneurship is not money but a business environment and ecosystem. Some government organizations demand thousands of various licenses from these companies and prevent their businesses, as if it gives them power. Entrepreneurship is not a value in our society despite the fact that everything is in the hands of entrepreneurs in an advanced community. We have attempted to develop these issues in knowledge-based economy. This economy is sold for 40 thousand billion and various startups have aimed to enter this new ecosystem.

However, human sciences is a significantly important base, and companies that are currently very successful have their foundations based on human sciences. One of our tasks have involved Alzahra University, and I feel that this university can move forward in this path with success since it is mainly a human science university, in which female students enroll. This can lead to the introduction of new ideas to the market since the perspective of female students is different than male individuals. Now, if they work in a company alongside engineering students, they will be able to create successful samples.

This issue was highlighted at the end of the previous government; the fact that our country is responsible for creating students and sending them to other countries as engineer or worker. Export was not the issue and they are recognized as emigrated elites. After the government of Ahmadinejhad, the same numbers and statistics were referred to and they said that 150 thousand students emigrate from Iran every year. Even the minister of the 11^th government pointed out the emigration of students. Do we really train students to emigrate?

I need to emphasize the concept of ecosystem one more time. Lack of such ecosystem leads to the production of students regardless of their field. There is no monitoring over this issue. The market must show that these fields are not required. The fact that we develop fields and be graduated as PhD holders by government money is not right.

In terms of emigration statistics, we need to be more sensitive since the base of knowledge-based economy is human beings, and our children are the basis of estimation in the new economy. The mentioned numbers have been supported by no valid source, and some cases are lie. For instance, there is a rumor that says that Iran was ranked first among 92 countries by international monetary fund in terms of brain drain in 2009. This report is utterly false since no such information has been provided by the mentioned fund. They reported a report in 1999, which was only for estimation of brain drain.

I have even seen PhD theses in human sciences conducted based on this hypothesis. There has been some reports on annual emigration by international organizations, such as organizations related to the United Nations. Nevertheless, the international monetary fund does not publish reports on brain drain and has published only one for Eastern Europe countries.

The number of brain drain is exactly what has been reported. In the beginning of the Islamic revolution, we had the largest colony of students in America with about 57 thousand students. Today, this number has decreased to 12 thousand students, changing our rank from 11 to 16. Today, China is ranked first with about 330 thousand students in America. In addition, Saudi Arabia and Korea have five and seven times more student than us, respectively. While we need to be more careful about our emigration rate, these journalistic reports must be accurate as well, which are not government but international numbers.

What do you mean by being more sensitive toward this issue?

This is the general culture of our society. I have previously stated to the presidents of provincial national elites foundation that there must be a comprehensive databank on elites of the country, and we must be sensitive toward the number of young elites outside their province.

Currently, the present of the national elites foundation in Hamadan had an interview, in which he announced that 82% of elites in Hamadan are outside this province; 60% are active in Tehran and about 10% are abroad. When a governor gets happy from discovering a gypsum mine in his province and thinks than it would lead to creation of new jobs, it would be good if he gets happy about the return of elites to his province since the future economy does not depend on sand and cement. The future economy relies on startups with weekly growth rate of 10%. These people will soon establish the largest companies of the country. Some of them have a growth rate of 30-40% in a month and they can invest in other startups and establish the required ecosystem.

Don’t you think the meaning of emigration has differed? Can elites be recruited in other countries? Regarding outside the country, we have several plans in the national elites foundation, including the cycle of young elites to have easy commute. One of the problems of these individuals is they interactions with Iran are eliminated after being outside the country for a few years, which is again created by the foundation.

Even if are not in Iran, they can establish companies inside the country and their lack of presence is not that much of an issue due to the developments in IT area and the greatest attraction platform is startups and not universities. In these companies, recruiting is based on brain; therefore, elites are recruited by startups.

Regarding students, you should know that “mobile student” ha developed three times in the world in the past decade and students are exchanged between universities. However, we are far left behind. We even ask why our children do not leave the country. Chinese motivate their children to go abroad.

I talked to the minister of science and head of the science academy of China and asked how they fund their 330 thousand students in America? He said that fund in America is prohibited. When the American government provide them with funds, why do we have to do the same? We have established a system to guarantee their return. There are 300 thousand Chinese students studying in America with American money and it is not a problem for us. We need to have a structure to be used by these individuals, whether for their return or in the form of workshops or conferences or to have their own companies inside the country.

This can lead to the development of economy. The fact that the country and public opinion are sensitive toward the exit of elites is a very important blessing. However, we should not lose hope. With regard to international statistics, we are neither immigrate nor emigrate country. In Canada, we had about 16 thousand and 700 emigrants in 2015, which has decreased to 11 thousands in 2016 and then six thousand and 400 individuals. In the past, we had up to 29 thousand emigrants to America, which is not that high in this country since it accepts emigrants. These people are not necessarily elites and could be just families.

The fact that China and Saudi Arabia have elites in America several times more than Iran means that talking about their elites and students is more politically concerned?

It seems that political groups want to take advantage of the emigration issue. In the national elites foundation, we have always aimed to deal with this issue logically. We want to provide the higher council of culture revolution with accurate numbers and statistics. We have a comprehensive databank on elites, whether those taking the entrance exam of universities or those participating in student Olympiads. We even know about their exit and many of them have been funded by us. However, these statistics are not for us to make and are international statistics reported every year. Therefore, it is wrong to say that this number of elites have exited the country in 2009.

If we evaluate 48 thousand students abroad, we will see that our largest colony is in America with 12 thousand students. The small details (e.g., which countries do Iranian students live in) on these statistics exist. In Europe, the highest number of our students is in Italy. In Canada, there are two thousand and 300 students, which is not significant at all. Every year, 500-600 individuals immigrate to Canada. We are known to have the most engineering graduates in the world. In some specific fields, we have many emigrants, such as electrical, computer and mechanics engineering, which as significantly decreased by the development of startups since these individuals are recruited by startups.

We have some issues regarding some specific fields in universities; however, this number is not concerning and we are not among the countries with highest rate of emigration.

There are some other concerns. Since the election of Mr. Rouhani as the president of Iran, the concept of reverse immigration has been discussed. It seems that you have also seriously followed up the condition for interacting with non-resident Iranians. How much of this issue is political and how much is real? Have you been able to create the foundation for reverse immigration?

We have obtained our ideas from Chinese and Americans. When you select a person, you tell them to come to the country for one year or six months and all of their costs will be supplied. If they were not content with their situation at the end of this period, no one would win. We can spend one tenth of the cost required to fund a person on returning of one elite to the country. We are talking about a person whose activities are clear and we know what achievements he has had during this time, which is much better than funding a person whose future is not clear and we do not know how he would function in the next four years. Today, if we want to fund a person, we need seven billion and five thousand hundred IRR to 10 billion IRR investment. However, one tenth of this amount could be spent to return a graduate, who worked in large companies and have had various articles, to the country and this the main solution for reverse immigration. When these individuals return to Iran, they will be recruited by the system, whether in universities or startups, in less than six months.

What number do you have in this regard?

We had some financial issues at some point and started the project from 400 top universities of the world. However, the project was welcomed in a way that the number of students reduced to 200 and then 100 top universities of the world. The number of Iranian students outside the country is limited. Nevertheless, three individuals apply for this project every day and we have become more picky in selecting the worthy elites.

Are there political problems in this area as well?

We can solve those problems.

Can you?

Yes. We obtain the necessary information in this regard. In addition, the work location of those returning to Iran is determined for one year. During this time, he needs to show his abilities and will be financially supported during this time. They say that some of these people become depressed and disappointed when returning to Iran.

Again, we need to refer to the ecosystem. We have been able to establish an ecosystem, in which those returning from abroad, who received 400 or 600 thousand dollars salary every year, have established startups and have 200-250 employees. We are a proper market for startups, especially service-providing startups. However, we require a great number of these individuals in our technology startups. Nevertheless, the market of technology startups are more limited and have less growth but have lower number of competitors.

Four years ago, when we talked about entrepreneurship and knowledge-based companies, everyone thought that this is just a formality. However, its impact is clearly evident today but has not been properly covered by the media.

Our children, who have recently returned from China, have seen “Suzhou”, and we need to understand how a fishing port is the center for attracting elites. This is a remarkable phenomenon occurring in China.

A few months ago, I read the report of OPEC on prediction of oil cost. In 2040, the whole north America and Europe will have 28% of GDP of the world. However, China and India will be allocated 39% of the world’s GDP. Why is that? Since human resource become more important. CEO of a valid Indian company, I believe its name is Ali Baba, wanted to lecture in a city, for which the whole city was locked and millions of people listened to his speech. The rate of Ali Baba in Alexa is 175 and rate of Digikala is 300. Nevertheless, I cannot introduce the CEO of Digikala as someone similar to “Steve Jobs” for people to listen to him. They will not be enthused if I say he started from the bottom and now has more than one hundred and 20 billion IRR sale rate every day. Entrepreneurship is not valuable in our society, and our media do not valuate an entrepreneur. Therefore, proper modeling cannot be carried out in this condition.

We have an unwanted grudge toward entrepreneurs…

Yes. However, startups have low costs and create high access and assurance. In fact, a new generation of entrepreneurs are working in the society and the old generation has left. Any person with experience in this field will be eliminated.

It seems that the greater share of this difficult task is on the shoulder of ministry of science and related organizations and universities than you…

The issue is our ecosystem.

An important activity of the national elites foundation is inside the country and we support our domestic children with the same cycle, so that they could become faculty members of universities. However, the university environment might not have the same ecosystem and some universities have considered this issue to better understand the position of elites. No significant issue has been observed in the ministry, and our main concern is universities and groups. We have reached a model, which determines how education is related to economy, which is the main solution in this regard. I believe that we have been able to properly develop this model, in a way that startups are growing rapidly. In this condition, when many industries might lose money, this area is rapidly growing.

 

Today, the youth can establish their own companies, and I advise them not to depend on the government because this part of research does not require the interference of the government and it must only facilitate establishing a proper business environment that can be developed. The same can be observed in Amazon, in which the highest investment is on technology and no one has invested in UAVs like Amazon. These companies invest in technology when developed. This new type of business is mainly concerned with human resource, and the difference between a creative individual and a wealthy person is determined here. Today, we a 25-year-old CEO with 40 million share and 10% weekly growth.