"Our region is at crossroads and our fates are inexorably tied. We can either succeed together or fail together. We can choose to erect barriers that stifle growth or forge new alliances that create opportunities. The Arab Strategy Forum is about the latter. It is about dialogue, debate and networks that create new opportunities for peace, progress and prosperity for our common region and our common future. It has been set up for the region, by the region.

I look forward to welcoming you to Dubai and hope you will be part of this momentous cause."
- HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

20 years ago I visited Dubai and it changed my life. Today I am leaving San Francisco with my wife and returning to Dubai to give a keynote talk at the Arab Strategy Forum on our emerging neurosociety. The central theme of the meeting is The Arab World in 2020 and I have been invited to share my perspective on Tomorrow’s World: A Peek into 2050 at the gala dinner on the second night.

It is an honor to be speaking with so many esteemed individuals, including: Former President Bill Clinton; Thomas Friedman; Madeleine Albright; Laura Tyson; Gideon Rose (Editor, Foreign Affairs); Prince Turki Al Faisal (Saudi Arabia); Jassim Al-Mannai (Chairman of the Arab Monetary Fund); Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi (Malaysia); Rafiq Al Hariri (Former Prime Minister of Lebanon); Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem (Libya); Hoshyar Zebari (Foreign Minister, Iraq); Fouad Ajami (Johns Hopkins); Juliette Kayyem (Harvard); Mohamed M. ElBaradei (Director General, IAEA); Fareed Zakaria (Editor, Newsweek); AbdulRahman Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah (Secretary General, GCC); Samir Al Ansari (CEO, Dubai International Capital); and many more key stakeholders.

The goal of the meeting is to advance the state of the Arab Region by bringing together key regional stakeholders to engage in activities that bridge differences and build opportunities for growth and prosperity in the region.

The invitation to speak came from a paper Tim-Rasmus Kiehl (a Harvard neuropathologist and long time Brain Waves reader) and I spontaneously wrote in September titled "The Neurotechnology Nexus: Opportunities for Dubai as a Leading Cluster of Converging Technologies." No one requested this information. We wrote this paper for one simple reason: to share the knowledge about how neurotechnology will impact business, politics and global culture in the years to come with those who are focused on the critical issues facing today's world. I am extremely honored and humbled by this opportunity and look forward to sharing my experiences upon my return.