The trilogy of knowledge

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
While it’s true that teaching a man how to fish serves for a lifetime, teaching him only how to fish in this day and age is simply not enough. That’s exactly what we observed on our first day in South Korea.
The Saudi Korean Youth Forum’s mission to assess Korea’s knowledge-based economy was mind-blowing from day one. Severely damaged by war with almost no capital, funds, or natural resources — South Korea seemed destined to become a developing country.
How was that possible?
If we take fishing as a symbol for attaining knowledge, then collecting knowledge is no longer sufficient. Today, a successful experienced entrepreneur is more likely to succeed in a new start-up than an MBA graduate from a top business school with no experience.
What does this tell us? World economies obtain knowledge over time, and in the knowledge-based economy, when knowledge is put into action, societies will thrive. This can be explained through the trilogy of knowledge; data processed is information and information applied is knowledge. Put that knowledge to practice and you’ve got a robust economic system that’ll probably last for —optimistically — another 5 to 10 years.
Sustainable economies are created through shared knowledge and experience. In turn, efficient economic interaction requires more than an invisible hand. To be effective, it needs clear action plans, effective governance arrangements, and sophisticated structural components to adequately service and achieve its aims and objectives.
In order to sustain a knowledge-driven society, our economy should not be heavily dependent on natural resources anymore. Day by day, our intellectual resources will gradually replace the natural resources that our country is heavily dependent on. The term “knowledge-based economy” emerged from the global recognition of the role of knowledge and technology for sustainable economic growth.
It is important to note that the term “knowledge-based economy” is to a considerable extent misleading. When analyzing world economies, knowledge can be a component to discovering and developing a natural resource-based economy, or it could be the main driving force behind a knowledge-based economy. However, what’s so distinctive about the 21st century’s so-called “knowledge-based economy” is that knowledge does not drive the economy, sharing it does. Knowledge is not only an ingredient toward income-generating industries; in KBE, knowledge in itself is an income generator.
Applying that to the real world, Saudi Arabia is blessed with the abundance of oil, and that was the driving force of its economy. Knowledge here was used as a component to discovering and developing that natural resource. Korea, on the other hand, has managed to shape its economy through heavily investing in its infinite intellectual resources, since knowledge cannot be depleted.
Korea started with almost no capital. It had no resources to depend on after the Korean War in 1953 apart from its human capital and incoming foreign aid. It was one of the poorest countries in the world, with family incomes comparable to the poorest parts of Africa. By 2012 it has became richer than the European Union average, with a gross domestic product per person of $31,750, compared with $31,550 for the EU.
It was very interesting for us to know that Korea has its own “Ministry of Knowledge Economy” that focuses on the growth of economic wealth through the creation, production, distribution and consumption of knowledge. Korea spends a larger share of its GDP on education than any rich country in the world creating a top-achieving, knowledge-thirsty, success-driven society that “sees education as a game”, as implied by one of our fellow Korean delegates.
Those were mere observation of only two days worth of exposure. We cannot wait to know more; the Koreans have been kind enough to “share” their knowledge, it’s about time that we start creating knowledge of our own to share both on a national and international scale.

— Norah Al-Ajaji & Sarah Alsaleh are part of the 26-member Saudi youth delegation and is headed by Yousuf Al-Saadoun, undersecretary at the Foreign Ministry for economic and cultural affairs.