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Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, will host Innovation Conference 2015 tomorrow (Tuesday 10th November), as part of 5th SME Toolkit 2015 Global Partner Conference currently taking place in Abu Dhabi.
The Innovation Conference will discuss the importance of leveraging partnerships to stimulate innovation and creativity in the SME sector, and learn from industry's best practices to develop competitiveness and innovation capacity. Government officials, leading international technology companies and experts from private and public sectors as well as SME owners and academics will participate in the conference.
Key speakers include: H.E. Khalifa Bin Salem Al Mansouri, Acting Undersecretary of the Department of Economic Development in Abu Dhabi, H.E Abdullah Al Darmaki, Chief Executive Officer of Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development and Mouayed Makhlouf, Director for the MENA region, International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank.
Singapore will be the guest country, with David Toh, Director CTO from Nanyang Technological University presenting a case study on Singapore's success on macro-economy level and SME level as a result of innovation strategy.
H.E. Abdullah Al Darmaki, Chief Executive Officer, Khalifa Fund, The UAE's dependence on oil has dropped sharply in the last few years as a result of wise economic policies implemented by the UAE Government. The contribution of oil revenue to the country's GDP stands at 30 per cent as compared to 90 per cent in 1973. SMEs are uniquely placed to drive further economic growth, which is demonstrated by the fact that 94% of the enterprises in the UAE are SMEs.
He added: At Khalifa Fund, we understand that innovation and creativity has a vital role to play in stimulating growth in the SME sector and vice versa. It is a priority for us to achieve innovation, thus we have dedicated several programs that revolve around it, such as the "Ibtikari" initiative. This commitment is clearly demonstrated by the number of projects and innovative applications launched recently under the umbrella of Khalifa Fund. We believe, innovation helps us in supporting and creating the right environment for SMEs to flourish, which will consequently contribute to the UAE's economic and social development. This conference is being held for the purpose of exchanging thoughts and learning from the most successful experiences locally, regionally and internationally. We will continue to launch more initiatives and programs to help cultivate entrepreneurial culture among UAE Nationals and encourage innovation around specific themes.
Today, International Finance Corporation ranked Khalifa Fund at first place globally for SME Toolkit UAE performance. SME Toolkit is an online solutions platform designed to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) grow their business and improve performance.
IFC ranked Khalifa Fund as the most active in terms of adding local content to the International Toolkit during the first quarter of this year, where the Fund has added 256 scientific studies, articles, research experiments and case studies on the development of SME sector in the UAE.
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