Keynote speakers
Prof. Keld Laursen
Copenhagen Business School
What Makes Universities Economically Useful—and What This Means for Developing Economies
Professor Keld Laursen is Professor of Economics and Management of Innovation and Head of the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). He also holds a DNV-GL Professor II position at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His research focuses on open and distributed innovation, the organization of innovative activities, and how firms and institutions create and capture value from external knowledge.
Professor Laursen’s work has been published in leading academic journals, including Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Economic Geography, and Research Policy. He is Co-Editor of Research Policy and serves on the editorial boards of the Strategic Management Journal and Industrial and Corporate Change. He is a former Chair of the Technology & Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management and has served as a panel member at the European Research Council (ERC).
Prof. Tareq F. Rasul
GUST
Mastering the Art of Systematic Literature Reviews
Associate Professor Tareq F. Rasul is an accomplished academic specializing in Digital Marketing, Consumer Behaviour, Entrepreneurship, and Tourism at the Gulf University for Science & Technology (GUST) in Kuwait. His teaching philosophy centres on inspiring curiosity and guiding students through a journey of personal and intellectual discovery.
His research interests include digital customer engagement, virtual reality in marketing, halal tourism, and entrepreneurial innovation. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers, with publications in leading ABDC A*, A and SCImago Q1-ranked journals, including Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Journal of Knowledge Management, Psychology & Marketing, and Current Issues in Tourism.