I have already mentioned here and other places on various occasions to remind ourselves and the officials that today more than any other time we have suitable conditions to realize the knowledge economy. Currently, we are able to work together and remove these small obstacles which hinder our path to science and technology. If we look at the situation of the country realistically, we can see that no excuses are acceptable to postpone what we have to do today to tomorrow .i.e. knowledge economy. We must not hesitate due to any lame excuses. If we do, we will - God forbid - miss the opportunities and we will not be able to use the blessings provided for us by God Almighty. Being grateful as taught by the teachers of our religion and morality means to appreciate what we have and use them to make the world a better place and especially improve the lives of our compatriots in terms of both quality and quantity. The greatest blessing that God has bestowed on us is the blessings of the Islamic Revolution and subsequently the ruling of Islam namely the Islamic Republic of Iran. If, God forbid, we fail in practice and show that a religious state is not able to manage the society and we beg the world’s evil countries for our most basic needs, we will lose this blessing and we will be known as the ungrateful until the Judgment Day. Being grateful increases your blessings and being ungrateful makes you lose them. Being appreciative means speeding up the development of the country, science and technology and using the knowledge, experience and human resources – especially the young expert youth of our country - and utilizing the intellectual political capacities and taking the Islamic Iran to the pinnacles of dignity, power and honor as soon as possible. These sentences must not be interpreted as exaggeration or mere slogans. We must not think that we should only use these words to motivate the academic and scientific community. As a matter of fact, if we look around and evaluate the available capacities and facilities, we will realize that today, more than any other day, the suitable conditions for growth and development are provided. In fact, at some levels, we have everything that we need. Therefore, we must not hesitate and begin the knowledge economy according to the requirements and foundations of resistance economy. Maybe there is only one obstacle in the way of realizing the knowledge economy. This hard obstacle can be removed by national determination. Our problem regarding this important issue is creating a discourse. We have postponed doing it and we have not succeeded yet. During the recent meeting of the supreme leader with our esteemed president and the cabinet which had many blessings, he emphasized the important issue of creating a discourse for the knowledge economy and more importantly the resistance economy. He advised the high-ranking officials of our country to consider this issued as a necessity and assist the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology as the responsible organization for knowledge economy.  One of the important blessings today that we must appreciate is the empathy and mutual understanding among the high-ranking officials of our Islamic regime. Today the government and the supreme Islamic institutions -from the top to the bottom- agree that the direction of our economy must be towards knowledge and the growth and development train must move on these tracks. In fact, the thing that can lead us to achieve our great economic, political and cultural objectives is the knowledge economy. It can act as a shortcut and accelerator. Perhaps, more than anything it can be useful to the resistance economy and make us a powerful country with an excellent position. As our wise men have stressed the need for creating a discourse, we must pursue this important and preliminary issue. Of course, there is the issue of creating the culture and we have tried to revive and develop such culture in our society as much as we have been able to.  We have had considerable progress in this regard.

Until a few years ago, knowledge-based science was a vague concept.  Not only in the economic fields but also in the academic environments nobody took it seriously. Many people did not know what it exactly means. However, today first of all thanks to the attention and emphasis of our supreme leader, secondly thanks to the efforts of the science and technology society - especially our colleagues in Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology-thirdly due to the presence of the elite academic youth in this field and finally due to the positive performance of the media, written and audiovisual media, cyberspace and the effective role of our national media (IRIB), knowledge-based concepts have become inclusive. It has become a comprehensible concept in the mind and conscience of the society. This is what I discussed earlier. All the suitable conditions and prerequisite are available. Everything is ready to advance the knowledge economy and accomplish this national objective. We must use everything at our disposal so that the Islamic Republic of Iran becomes a role model in terms of welfare and development for all the Muslims of the world and all the oppressed nations.

* Perviz Karami. The Advisor to Iranian Vice-President for Science and Technology and the president of the knowledge-based science, technology and economy culture development headquarter