Iran Claims to Have Middle East’s Largest Innovation Ecosystem

Sorena Sattari said thousands of companies are working in this field in Iran.
“Over the past 7 years, we made all our efforts in cooperation with all state and private-sector institutions to develop an innovation and technology ecosystem. At the moment, Iran has the Middle East’s biggest innovation ecosystem where more than 5,500 knowledge-based companies are working,” Sattari said in comments on Sunday.

“Firms also stepped into areas such as biotechnology, stem cells and artificial intelligence, and we have a good status in the region in that regard. We sometimes have good rankings in Asia, too,” the official underlined.

He also touched upon the importance of the private sector’s role in research.

“The private sector’s investment in research is one of the pillars of our economy,” Sattari said.

“Products should be the result of the private sector’s investment. The government should provide the infrastructure. When we talk about a [coronavirus] vaccine, it should be developed with the private sector’s investment,” he noted.