Dr. Ahmed Naseeb Al Jaberi :
The United Arab Emirates has announced during the Government Summit 2015 held last week a host of measures to make innovation the central pillar of public life in the country. Besides AED4.1 billion earmarked for the project, the UAE government has also put forth a seven-point scheme to make innovation the driving force in UAE’s schools and universities. Robot laboratories in schools, complete curriculum overhauls in such a way as to infuse innovation into its core and the setting up of ‘innovation incubators’ for university students are among the key initiatives in this respect. The plan also includes several other key components, such as the “Innovator of the Future” initiative to spot talent at the age of 5-6 years, following it up with rigorous training camps to nurture and mould promising talents and the appointment of Chief Innovation Officers in various government entities aiming to drive creativity. The UAE government has already signed a contract with the prestigious Cambridge University, UK, to train 60 innovation officers.
The announcement of a whole raft of measures aimed at driving creativity and innovation by HH Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE and Minister of Presidential Affairs, came close on the heels of the cabinet decision in November 2014 to declare 2015 as the Year of Innovation with a view to make the UAE a world leader in innovation. The cabinet meeting, held in the 500-year old historic fort in Al Fujairah, then called upon all federal government bodies to revise and revamp their policies to develop a nurturing environment for creativity and innovation. The idea was to attract national skills, increase quality research and to build a national cadre capable of leading the future, as stated by the country’s prudent leadership. “Our objective is for everyone to work in the spirit of innovation. We want to follow this spirit of innovation deriving inspiration from the spirit of Sheikh Zayed, who never stopped thinking, innovating, creating and achieving,” explained HH Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed, outlining the contours of the futuristic plan.
Innovation in our times, especially with respect to governance and statecraft, has a direct relationship with our approach to the sphere of technology. Historically, there have always been those who embraced and those who resisted new technologies. The Luddites in the early nineteenth century may have been an extreme example of resistance to technology. They vehemently rallied against the new textile machinery because they feared it would make them redundant. Similar fights erupted in several countries since the beginning of the industrial revolution over steam engines, electricity and even computers. The reason for this resistance was the fear that new technologies would lead to loss of jobs for the labour force. Fortunately, this kind of resistance has now given way to a global rush to welcome new technologies. This is true of the poorer nations of the world as well as the wealthy ones, albeit the existing differences in the degree of success.
In the MENA region, the UAE has consistently blazed the trail in its judicious embrace of new technologies as an effective means to transform the quality of life for its people. Blind pursuit of the latest fashion in technology was never the policy approach of this country; it always followed a well-thought out strategy that enabled it to adopt what was suitable and necessary for achieving the development goals set by the prudent leadership.
The introduction of innovation as a central pillar of governance and nation building assumes especial significance against the backdrop of the UAE success story so far. On the one hand, it will occasion the utilisation of various types of innovation in diverse spheres of life for the overall objective of building the future that the UAE aspires to. On the other, it will wean the new generation away from habits of rot learning and mechanical and unthinking acceptance of change, thereby instilling in the youngsters the much-needed spirit of enquiry and original thinking. The most obvious result of such a transformation will be the formation and availability of a strong national cadre of professionals capable of responding to the challenges of the future with self-confidence and native originality. For this to happen, innovation in all its multiple forms must flourish.
Bryan C. Mezue, Clayton M. Christensen and Derek Van Bever from the Harvard Business School recently classified innovation into three varieties – sustaining innovation, efficiency innovation and market-creating innovation. While the first refers to the substitution of old products with newer and better ones, the second is about increasing productivity at lesser cost. The third and most important variety of innovation is that which make products and services cheap and accessible enough to reach all the targeted segments.
The UAE already has all the three varieties of innovation in place. The renewed focus on innovation and the resultant vocational programmes and trainings as well as the close attention paid to schools and universities as the breeding grounds of innovative talent will undoubtedly lead to a quantum leap in producing a skilled national workforce. The authors mentioned above suggested that since skilled workforce is even scarcer than capital, efforts at creating skilled talent is crucial to “more broad-based job creation and more robust and lasting prosperity” for all countries and their citizens. The year of innovation, therefore, is the watershed moment in the UAE’s quest for self-reliance and global pre-eminence.
(Dr. Ahmed Naseeb Al Jaberi is Director of Corporate Governance at the Emirates Identity Authority )
