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Elsharkawy, Mohamed Egypt         Mohamed A. El-Sharkawi is a Fellow of IEEE. He received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Cairo High Institute of Technology (Currently, Helwan University) in 1971, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1980. In 1980 he joined the University of Washington as a faculty member where he is presently a Professor of Electrical Engineering. He also served as the Associate Chair and the Chairman of Graduate Studies and Research. Professor El-Sharkawi served as the Vice President for Technical Activities of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. He served as a member of the administrative committee of the IEEE Neural Networks Council representing the IEEE Power Engineering Society, and was the society’s Multi-Media chair. He is the founder of the international conference on the Application of Neural Networks to Power Systems (ANNPS) and co-founder of the international conference on Intelligent Systems Applications to Power (ISAP). He is the founder and chair of the Northwest Energy System Symposium (NWESS). He is also a member of the organizing committees of numerous regional and international conferences. Professor El-Sharkawi is the founding chairman of numerous IEEE task forces, working groups and subcommittees. He organized and chaired numerous panels and special sessions in IEEE and other professional organizations. He organized and taught several international tutorials on intelligent systems applications, energy management systems, renewable energy, electric safety, load forecasting, vulnerability assessment, VAR management, and power systems operations. Professor El-Sharkawi is a member of the editorial boards and is the associate editor of several journals. He served as editor/co-editor of several IEEE tutorial books on Intelligent Systems and Applications. He published over 200 papers and book chapters in his research areas. He authored two textbooks on fundamentals of Electric Drives and Electric Energy: An Introduction. He also authored and co-authored 4 research books in the area of intelligent systems. He holds 5 licensed patents in the area of renewable energy VAR management, and minimum arc sequential circuit breaker switching. Professor El-Sharkawi served as an external evaluator for several engineering and research programs in Middle-East universities. He also consults in the areas of electric safety, system’s operation and control, power systems, renewable energy and intelligent systems. Abstract Research for Sustainable Economic Development, not Just for Prestige The successful models for sustainable development in emerging economies remain intrinsically attached to adequate management of resources, knowledge, and innovation. These factors have undoubtedly provided the most resilient and solid foundations for economic growth, industrial diversification and modernization, and the improvement in the standard of living__In the Middle-East, the advancement of education, from literacy campaigns to higher education, has received noticeable priority throughout the region.Consequently, the region has now an extensive pool of highly educated individuals, which in many instances at par with developed countries. Nevertheless, unfortunately, the region is far from achieving its research potentials because of several reasons, among them are the inadequate allocation and placement of research funds; the decoupling between research and industrial need of societies; the dependence on foreign resources to provide industrial research; the dependency on foreign turn-key systems; and the lack of confidence in domestic human skills_ Although wide spread, importing western research model for the Middle-East has failed in many instances. This is because western models are designed to fit into western society’s needs, aspirations and visions. When these factors are not the same for the developing country, the research efforts are often wasted or muted_ A better model for the developing countries would be the “mission research.” This is a focused research niche that positions the country globally. Mission research is by far the most successful model for many developing countries. Examples are consumer electronics in South Korea, software industry in India, computer industry in Taiwan, solid-state manufacturing in Mexico, service industry in India, food industry in Brazil and Argentina, and instrumentation industry in Indonesia. In all these examples, a national strategy with clear vision has propelled the education system as well as national resources and business community toward that central vision