Patents filed with education ministry increase 7-fold

Dubai - The UAE has set its sights on becoming a global leader in innovation and in capitalising on the unfolding fourth industrial revolution, officials said.
Addressing at the Co-Create Agenda of Innovation Live! conference, Huda Al Hashimi, Assistant Director General of Strategy and Innovation, Prime Minister's Office, said the government accelerators programme celebrated its first year recently, and the results have so far been promising.
Some of the achievements include a seven-fold increase in patents filed at the Ministry of Education - 27 within a 60-day period or 135 per cent better compared to last year.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation has recorded a 106 per cent employment of Emirati nationals in the private financial sector, while the Ministry of Economy has achieved a 100 per cent improvement, successfully passing a by-law for venture capital activities in the UAE within a 50-day period.
"To become a global innovation leader, we need to improve efficiency, which is what we are doing with the government accelerators programme; as well as to engage the private sector in innovative collaborative partnerships," Al Hashimi added, who also emphasised that the path towards innovation could be challenging, so "we need to admit the short-term failures in order not to have the big failures down the road."
Organised by Meed in partnership with the Prime Minister's Office, Innovation Live! was launched last year and has since become a thriving network of more than 700 innovators from government and the private sector working together to co-create and deliver outcome-driven innovations to support the UAE's Vision 2021.
Innovation Live! has now provided 11 recommendations from its think tank sessions that are now being reviewed by the Prime Minister's Office as to how they can be utilised to achieve the UAE's Vision 21.
Among the recommendations that have been put forward include focus on the UAE becoming a leader in manufacturing as well as research and development of advanced technology in areas of global interest like Artificial Intelligence, semiconductors, nanotechnology and 3D printing. There are also plans to boost innovation in the SME sector with various funding and support mechanisms.
-waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com