• Fulfilling the Promise
  Will the project live up to expectations and will the vision for it ultimately be realized? Will it really come to life and offer a pleasant quality of life, and a stable and prosperous economy and political life?
   
• The Attractiveness Challenge
  How do you best position and promote your KIZ so that it is attractive to people and enterprises who have the talent and funds to come and invest -
  especially when human capital and expertise and financial capital is so footloose these days, and competition with other zones is intensifying?
   
• Models of Knowledge Exchange
  What are the new forms of knowledge commerce – from creation to commercialization or application – that ensure highly leverages human talent locally, regionally and worldwide?
• Foresight - Future Readiness
  How do you make effective strategic plans and investment so that your zone is well conditioned to prosper economically in the years to come in the face of rapidly changing global conditions?

Knowledge-Based Society Concerns

• Change & Adaptation
  How do you put in place the right measures to encourage people
  and organizations to change and adapt to rapidly changing local
  and global and technological realities?
   
• Internalizing A Continuous Innovation Culture & Mindset
  How can you rapidly learn and take advantage of the best emerging knowledge innovation practices and policies and save time by not reinventing the wheel, and also condition your KIZ to operate in a continuous knowledge innovation mode?
   
• Political Risks
  How do you proceed with an aggressive development path, without alienating existing centers of influence and power? And how do you also achieve grassroots support from a wide cross-section of the social spectrum? How do you avoid resistance and backlash that might impede progress?
   
• Knowledge Leadership challenge
  How do you rapidly develop the knowledge savvy leadership that will have the smarts and experience to actually successfully carry out the vision expressed in ambitious strategic plans? Many people want to embrace the knowledge imperative, but do not understand the profound difference between old industrial economics and knowledge-based economics and markets.

Knowledge-Based Infrastructure Concerns

• The Digital Divide
  How do you pursue a development path that facilitates access to technologies
  such as the internet, broadband, and wireless, by all sectors of the population,
  as well as allows for varied cultural and demographic needs.
   
• Intellectual Property Rights
  How do harmonize such legal arrangements like the protection of intellectual
  property with those of other jurisdictions and global organizations without
  overcomplicating matters locally?
   
• Technology Forecasting and Assessment
  How can you acquire the insights into changing technology trends so as to
  make the right strategic decisions and investments, based on likely technological developments?
   
•  Good Governance
  How do you secure adequate project oversight and transparency so that well-intentioned initiatives do not become derailed? How do maintain fairness, trust in private and public institutions, along with accountability and transparency?
  
  These are a select set of examples of challenges faced by Knowledge Innovation Zone developers, as we move forward. Answers will be invaluable.
  
  There is a leadership race to find the best ways to concentrate and fuse talent, technology, and techniques in vital and thriving new urban and rural configurations. These new initiatives range from creating new economy districts, to establishing science technology and innovation clusters, to the development of entirely new or reborn cities and regions. Industries are being reconfigured and collective problem-solving has become the norm.
  
  If you have unanswered questions, perhaps you might consider a KIZ Executive Briefing for your leadership and/or a full-scale Knowledge Innovation Zone Assessment!
  
  © 2005 ENTOVATION International and The Kaieteur Institute for Knowledge Management.