Science and technology in Jordan

Science and Technology is Jordan's fastest developing economic sector. This growth occurs across multiple industries including Information and Communications Technology, and Nuclear Technology.

Information and Communications Technology

Jordan's success is not necessarily accidental as it has his support of the monarchy.Queen Rania has touted the expansion of social media, and used Twitter and YouTube to address the country. Jordan has been touted against the top three leaders in technology sitting alongside North Africa and Egypt. Support from the powers-that-be of course, would be nothing if it were not for raw talent and drive that exists among Jordanian developers. Roba al Assi, a Jordanian blogger who currently works at Bayt.com managing the sub-division, Bayt Communities, attributes a large part of the credit to the open source community citing groups and organizations like the Jordan Open Source Association, GeekFest and Amman Tech Tuesdays. “What helps is that we are a country of human resources, as opposed to natural resources. In the absence of money and more lucrative industries, the Jordanian youth has spent the past decade building its passion for the ‘you can do what you want attitude’ of our industry.” Al Issi adds the information technology educational structure to the list of assets that has Jordan sprinting ahead. “Historically, most of the large web startups have been Jordanian in origins, like Manitoba, al-Bawaba and Jeeran,” she adds.”[1]

Jordan contributes 75 percent of the Arabic content on the Internet. In fact, the Information and Communications Technology sector is the fastest growing sector in Jordan’s economy with a 25 percent growth rate. The sector accounts for more than 84,000 jobs, and contributes 14 percent to the GDP. There are 400 companies Jordan operating across the spectrum of telecom, IT, on-line and mobile content, business outsourcing, and video game development. It has been estimated that these subsections of the Information and Communications Technology industry will create over 18,000 jobs over the next five years (2015-2020).

Nuclear Science and Technology

Nuclear Science and Technology is also expanding. The country is planning to build two nuclear power plants by 2020 near Qasr Amra. Additionally, a small research reactor is currently under construction, called the Jordan Research and Training Reactor, located in the Jordan University of Science and Technology campus in Ar-Ramtha. Its intent is to train nuclear engineers in Jordan using the existing nuclear engineering program.

Jordan was selected as the location for the International Centre for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science Applications in the Middle East (SESAME). This particle accelerator will allow collaboration between scientists across the Middle East.

See also

• Culture of Jordan