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The overwhelming response to the first Abu Dhabi Innovation Forum 2010, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, manifests the increasing requirements to undertake innovation within the government and the private organisations in the UAE.
Made specifically for local businesses and associations, academic and government heads from all sectors responsible for building a culture of innovation, the forum’s keynote presentation was given by world-renowned innovator Professor Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Chairman of The Business Innovation Generator, Singapore Management University. He applauded and took exception the initiatives of the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development wherein Emiratis are given the opportunity to innovate and start their own business and eventually become entrepreneurs.
“The main challenge for organisations is how to create successful innovation that matters and the ability to identify what the market will accept. We also need to gauge the market and technology readiness for such innovation being introduced,” said Narasimhalu.
The presentation made by Dr. Thomas Andersson, President, International Organisation for Knowledge Economy and Enterprise Development (IKED) highlighted the eight gaps of Abu Dhabi as compared with other Knowledge-based economies. These gaps are economic diversification; the turnover of the expatriate “creative class”; ties among talented individuals belonging to different organisations; implementation of a policy for wellbeing, and environmental and sustainable economy and society.
He also mentioned the environment conducive to the development of opportunity-based entrepreneurship; R&D and technical innovation; mobilisation of human resources and investments to match opportunities for economic and business development; and governance and collaboration to underpin consistency in regard to innovation.
Meanwhile, the first company to be profiled was Microsoft, wherein the company’s general manager in the Gulf Charbel Fakhoury imparted the global company’s innovative processes. He pointed out that the following factors to succeed are to embrace change to sustain growth, to invest in technology and business model innovation, to develop capability of the best and brightest, balance long-term approach with short-term accountability, and build partnerships to drive innovation.
“Inside Microsoft, we understand that the customers have changed; the current downturn cannot be missed; and we are optimistic on the long-term. We drive a culture of continuous innovation and shared vision of producing new products, new services and new business model,” Fakhoury added.
Dr. John Bell, Head of Strategy and Partnerships, Royal Philips, explained the steps in Open Innovation based on the tried and tested formulas from Philips Research. He shared two ways to practice Open Innovation, which is to incorporate the external world into your own organisation and open up internal organisation for external world, including a presentation of the pros and cons of both ways. Open innovation is done in order to create value; strengthen competences; reduce cost and share risk; and change culture.
Furthermore, Kamal Hassan, Chief Executive Officer of Innovation 360, led the practical workshop for systematic innovation as a predictable force for business and government transformation. He explained how to identify innovation opportunities, generate internal and external ideas and implement innovative solutions that works in all times. He also mentioned that the best innovation to be employed in the Middle East is strategic innovation through the implementation of a business model innovation unique in the region.
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