Digital desert - Privileged nations face cultural obstacles

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"We were given every conceivable assurance that we would be able to function the same way we do in New York, but there were many skeptics," said Daniel Alonso, dean of Weill Cornell at Qatar. "The proof of the pudding in the end is who is giving the medical degree. It will be a Cornell University medical degree. If you do that, you are risking reputation. You are risking everything."

Admissions decisions at Cornell are handled by the same committee that performs the task for the main campus in New York. Students rejected in New York cannot reapply in Qatar.

At one of the undergraduate campuses in Qatar, a member of an aristocratic family was rejected. The foundation issued not a peep.

A hands-off policy applies to the Qatar Science and Technology Park as well. After a few mis-starts, the foundation hired Angle Technology, a British consulting firm that helps U.K. universities commercialize technology, to handle its operations.

Angle, in turn, does not participate in the venture fund or invest in companies incubated at the park. The firm receives only a management consulting fee under a contract that runs through 2009.

"There is no Qatar-ization quota," said Ben Figgis, marketing manager for the Qatar Science and Technology Park. "If you want an office that is 100 percent Indian, you can."

That's a marked contrast to other countries such as Bahrain and the UAE, where the governments routinely push for local hiring. The leaders in the other nations also typically don't understand that the payoff on investments into research and development may not come for five to 10 years, said Mahmood Panjawi, a venture capitalist with Minah Ventures, which invests in the area. They often want a payoff in two years or so.

In a telling sign, Dubai Silicon Oasis, a semiconductor park in Dubai, has so far generated more revenue for selling building lots for condominiums than attracting chip designers. UAE leaders "want a knowledge economy, but they don't know what a knowledge economy is," one Western consultant said.

Cultural differences crop up among students as well. At Texas A&M, students rebelled against the university's decision not to create separate men's and women's lounges.

"The students protested. It was very tense," said W. Mike Kemp, dean of Texas A&M at Qatar. "'Why are you trying to destroy our culture?' they said. 'We're not. We're trying to make you into functioning engineers,' we told them."

Other social issues of Western higher education are more easily addressed--such as keg parties. Just one liquor store exists in all of Qatar, and only Westerners with a special license can shop there. Course-hopping has been less of a problem too, but that was because the students didn't really understand that they could drop out of a class after it began.

Arab students, meanwhile, say their American counterparts view their cultures in sometimes-laughable stereotypes.

"They were so afraid of us," said Carnegie Mellon student Fahad Hassan Al-Jefairi, who visited the university's Pittsburgh campus. "They asked, 'Do you have a palace in the desert? Do you drive a dune buggy?'"