Innovation will be the key driver of our economy

Ahmed Alderei describes the need for innovation to transform the economy

The pursuit of excellence is a requirement for any country that seeks to better itself. The UAE is no exception.

Most often, a country has both traditional and modern means of enhancing such pursuits of excellence, and it is the merger of these old and new methods that underpins the innovation required to fulfil the vision.

This country’s initiative to transform itself from oil dependency to an economy driven by knowledge, technical skills and ideas that result in enterprises characterised by inventiveness and clever use of resources, is complementary to such a pursuit. This, though, must not come at the expense of cherished traditions and customs.

Innovation might be thought of as the facilitation of invention – taking something new and making it more broadly useful.

What might otherwise be merely unique or novel works to solve a problem, improve health and welfare, satisfy or please customers, reform an establishment that is struggling to survive or rescue a company from bankruptcy.

Public transportation can be used to ease the overreliance on cars to address both overcrowding of roads and polluting of air. A novel governing endeavour such as a happiness minister invites citizens to think in less routine ways about how to achieve a pervasive sense of public satisfaction.

Unbounded contemplation of this sort can lead to advances in medicine, fitness, diet, insurance, banking and many other areas of daily life.

Innovation – widespread in schools, universities and enterprise – can be found in curricula, research, studies and projects. It is evident in awards and exhibitions that reveal and inspire talent.

It results in polished and burnished ideas that encourage individuals to show individual distinction as a pursuit in its own right. Innovation promotes sustainable development and attainment of the hopes of the country to build an economy based on knowledge, not on barrels of oil that will run out tomorrow.

Fortunately, leaders in the UAE support innovation, generously rewarding pioneers, pathfinders and entrepreneurs. This support motivates citizens and residents to think actively along these lines.

The Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development has, since 2007, promoted and facilitated entrepreneurial activity, providing not only financial support but also consulting services for ideas that show promise in improving the lives of people in the country.

Ideally, the world of tomorrow will sparkle with the evidence of people’s solutions to many technical and infrastructural problems: novel engineering plans, redrawn maps and interconnected facilities, needs for convenience and efficiency addressed, and economic challenges resolved.

The country has a bright future, full of ready and able minds sorting out environmental difficulties with a view towards achieving a balance with nature.

It is vital to enable oneself to embrace an innovative culture. The predisposition is not congenital, but must be acquired through experience and enlightened thought until it becomes a passion that can be developed according to a person’s own interests and natural abilities.

Viewed properly, innovation is all that stands between us and our future, which we aspire to look upon and say: “We did it.”

One day, citizens and residents will wonder what it must have been like to depend on a single commodity for economic well-being, just as today we wonder how our forebears could have possibly managed in the absence of cars, planes, trains, abundant petrol and air conditioning.

How did they do it?

The same way we have done it – by making the most of what we have learnt, what abilities we have broadened and refined as the walls between us and global neighbours have fallen to allow for the free flow of information, ideas and applications.

They did it the same way we will do it – through innovation.

Ahmed Alderei is an Emirati educator