The Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Saturday launched a global thought leadership platform to help frame and stimulate regional and global debate on vital development issues shaping the Middle East.

I met not one but three remarkable social entrepreneurs here in Haiti. The first is a young woman who is leading a local effort to help other entrepreneurs in Haiti, the second a young man who now runs the larges plastic recycling business and the last, a returned political exile from the Duvalier era that now runs a promising hydroponics business off of his roof!

First Lady Michelle Obama recently published a piece inThe Atlantic, making the case for the White House’s Let Girls Learn initiative. She wrote, “Right now, 62 million girls worldwide are not in school. They’re receiving no formal education at all.” 

Set in lush green lawns of the Swiss embassy, an exhibition featuring the work of 12 Pakistani sculptors was held on Friday. Speaking to The Express Tribune, Satrang Gallery Director Asma Khan said the embassy asked her to put up a show of sculptors for them.

Few foreign visitors make it through their first day in Japan without singing the praises of this epitome of Japanese know-how; a contraption that offers both comforting warmth and a frighteningly accurate bidet jet. Now the government appears ready to capitalise on the enthusiasm and is set to talk up toilet technology as it launches a worldwide drive to promote Japan's prowess in innovation for the smallest room, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Israel's Grand Challenges initiative on Sunday for the first time awarded ten Israeli innovators with grants of up to NIS 500,000 for projects that tackle tough issues in the developing world.