Tuesday May 13, marked the last class of the Competitiveness Course at ICS this Term. We finished the course with the case of Ghana. Compared with the successful cases of innovation and economic development in the early part of the course such as Finland, Estonia, and Costa Rica, the last two cases we did in the course, namely, Indonesia and Ghana, gave us a lot of things to think about. For example, we learned how important basic education (high literacy rate, for example) and political stability is for the economic development and good standard of living for the country, and yet, when the country is faced with so many issues and things to do, how to prioritize the activities and sequence the actions becomes overwhelming and difficult. 
   We also discussed the Diamond Model we introduced in the course. We realized how complex the issues of productivity, competitiveness and economic development are. We also became very much aware of the importance of leadership, process management and how to get people of the organizations with different mentality, different way of thinking and different “language” to come and stay onboard in the collaborative effort to improve productivity and competitiveness of the country and the region. 

   I enjoyed this course very much and have become even more aware of the need for collaboration among private and public sectors. I hope that I get the message across to the future leaders how important to have a high aspiration beyond short-term profitability.