I would like to express my appreciation to His Highness the Amir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, for his gracious patronage of the Knowledge Economy Forum (KEF), which demonstrates his unlimited support to the importance of building a highly productive human capital that is key to
long-term economic development, given that our future is hinged to the extent by which knowledge, innovation and the capability to establish a knowledge
economy is mapped  to the 3^rd Millennia and to knowledge cities.
The Forum meets amidst global transformations and challenges, the most important of which is building a creative and resilient human capital that is capable of keeping pace with accelerated change while leveraging investment opportunities that are embedded into current challenges to create growth, progress and job opportunities in alignment with modernized job markets of independently-employed technically skilled labour. However, in order to achieve this goal, it is of paramount importance to re-think the entire education system from pre-primary education to life-learning programs, and to ensure that learning outcomes are coherently responsive to labour market characteristics of the 3^rd Millennia requiring qualified human talent that has technical and professional competencies.
Central to this transformation is a System of Knowledge Economies that leads global economies toward growth, diversification and distinctiveness, that is Research & Development (R&D) intensive and that is able to provide markets with innovative entrepreneurial ideas that can be industrialized into goods and services to boost the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
In this knowledge-based environment, it is significantly important that public policies are designed to encourage eagerness and inventiveness in today’s young people who shall grow to be tomorrow’s innovative leaders.
The 21^st Century is a time of tremendous economic and digital transformations leading global markets to hit record growth rates and reaching the targets of development goals, mainly: productivity, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and the ease of doing business while bolstering knowledge markets that begin and end with the human capital.
Kuwait’s 3^rd Knowledge-Economy is organized in collaboration with Kuwait’s First Human Capital Forum entitled “Building Human Capital from a Knowledge-Economy Perspective”, to shed light on Kuwait’s Vision and the global goals by focusing on Human Capital as the core drivers of Knowledge-Economy that leverages knowledge, innovation and digitization in the 3^rd Millennia.

This 3^rd Knowledge-Economy Forum has received the gracious patronage of H.H. the Amir of Kuwait, and is organized in cooperation with Kuwait’s First Human Capital Forum.
The Forum is considered important from technical and professional perspective and its roundtable discussions shedding light on global issues, mainly how to achieve Human Development Goals, with focus on education, health, jobs and skills and people’s choices to advance their economic, social, health and technical development.
The Forum acknowledges the significance of the Human element as central to achieving national development.  Human Capital is the actual physical wealth of nations. Building the capacity of the Human Capital is among other key drivers for the betterment of human life and the improvement of work-related concepts towards building a knowledge-based society that is innovative, distinctive and competitive.
In Kuwait, as well as in other countries of this region, national development plans mostly focus on a set of key pillars, including: education, health and the labor market. These are the country’s launch-pads into 3^rd Millennia, and are entirely based on knowledge, innovation and digitization and spin-off industries and services.
The Forum will also discuss several topics, including: the significance of investing in pre-primary education and in Life-Long Learning programs, the role of health in building economic development and sustainable competitiveness. In addition, there will be a roundtable discussion on the future of jobs and labor markets, future jobs and the role of women in future job markets.
Day 2 will hold discussions on economic related topics focusing on building a system of knowledge economies, global markets and the role of digital industries in boosting competition and improving ease of doing business.
The Forum shall conclude with a presentation on the Belt & Road Initiative, highlighting the future prospects of regional economies.
The Forum is open to everyone to join the scientific and professional community and to contribute to this event that represents social responsibility toward the people of this region, and to strengthen knowledge-based partnerships between countries and institutions.