Rabat Events : Silicon Valley in Morocco, Dec. 2

Moroccan BMCE Bank, in joint collaboration with engineering school École Mohammedia d’Ingénierie (EMI), Rabat, and Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, is organizing on Thursday Dec. 2 a conference at the Tour Hassan Hotel, Rabat, under the theme of: “Meeting the Silicon Valley -- High Tech Research, Development and Collaboration in Morocco”



The conference will be attended by several personalities, representing important American companies in the sector of High Technology, such as Texas Instruments, Agilent Technologies, Qualcomm, Atrenta, Greenberg Traurig, as well as a dozen of companies from the Silicon Valley specialised in cutting-edge high technology. The participating corporations aim at reinforcing their cooperation in the domain of scientific research.


The conference will be divided into seven focus groups in which different participants from both countries, belonging to public and private sector companies, schools and universities, will share their experiences in the domain of high-tech research and development.


The two first focus groups will introduce respectively École Mohammedia d’Ingénierie (EMI), Rabat, and Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane. This will provide American participants with an idea about two of the country’s most eminent higher education establishments.


Moroccan discussions will be followed by two other focus groups, introducing American companies that are involved in the semiconductor industry. The first panel will discuss innovations in manufacturing, while the second will present cutting-edge design features in semiconductors.


After a half-an-hour lunch, top officials of the main participating companies will deliver speeches. They are as follows:


Mr. M’Fadel El Halaissi, Deputy General Manager, BMCE Bank
Mr. Mike Fazeli, General Manager, Global Electronic Design, Texas Instruments
Dr. Waguih Ishak, General Manager Assistant, Agilent Technologies
Mr. Luigi Gasparollo, Vice-President, Qualcomm


Other personalities will deliver speeches, followed by the signature of a school-corporation agreement between EMI, Rabat, AUI, Ifrane, and Atrenta, San Jose- Cal., the developer of semiconductors design software, SpyGlass. The agreement will be concluded by the donation of Atrenta’s software to the two educational institutions.


In the afternoon, discussions will address the issue of American funding of research, innovations in wireless devices constituents, and innovations in telecoms constituents.


The conference will be concluded at 6 pm by a speech from EMI’s Director, Mr. Ramdane Khalid.


The conference highlights

US Ambassador Thomas Riley and Mr. M’Fadel El Halaissi, Deputy General Manager of BMCE’s Corporate Bank, co-chaired the signing of the school-corporation agreement between EMI, Rabat, AUI, Ifrane, and Atrenta Software, San Jose- Cal., following which the American company offered the two schools copies of its Spyglass software.


Atrenta Software makes collaborative software for the semiconductor and electronics industries. Its SpyGlass predictive analysis products help engineers identify design problems in integrated circuits. Customers include Canon, Panasonic, Hitachi, Motorola, and Siemens, among others. Forty percent of the company is owned by officers and employees, while 60% is owned by venture capital firms. Investors include Smart Technology Ventures, TL Ventures, and Venrock Associates. Atrenta has offices in France, India, the UK, and the US, and distributors worldwide


The three parties are the first to seek such a cooperation, which is considered an example of possibilities offered by the Morocco-USA free trade agreement. In this regard, Pr. Ramdane Khalid, Director of EMI expressed hopes that the successful conference may result in more joint programmes between researchers and engineers in the two countries, like the one achieved by his school and AUI with Atrenta. The latter has already on its record excellent similar agreements with some of America’s most prestigious campuses, MIT and UCLA.


The American delegation, composed of 18 representatives, will stay in the country for five days, during which they will get in touch with local political and economic actors. “The visit will allow members of the delegation to have a better insight of Morocco’s progress, the challenges it is facing, its initiatives concerning scientific research, education and training,” said Pr. Zouheir Bensaid, Dean of Al-Akhawayn University’s School of Engineering, Ifrane.


In turn, Dr. Waguih Ishak, Photonics & Electronics Director, Agilent Technologies, said: “Morocco and California share common factors for success; besides their geographical position, climate, tolerance spirit, they are also crossroads of cultural diversity and open gates for important markets, California to Asia, and Morocco to Europe and the Middle East.”


Dr. Ajoy Bose, Atrenta Software’s Chairman and CEO, put stress on the issue of intellectual property, pointing out that only a state of law, in which trade courts play a primary role in protecting copyrights, can promote Morocco’s place among leading countries in the domain of high technology.