'Community innovation to bring positive changes': VP

The innovation that represents a society’s true sustainable wealth is the main pillar for the development of peoples and progress of nations toward the future, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has said.

The UAE has adopted innovation as a culture of work and lifestyle to build a knowledge-based society, led by innovators with a vision of the future to promote the development of the state and consolidate its international standing, he added.

"The UAE has become a global platform for innovation and innovators, attracting the best minds and talents from around the world, and providing them with the opportunities and the environment they need to enable their inventions to bring positive change to society," Sheikh Mohammed said on the occasion of launching the UAE’s second annual Innovation Week.

"The UAE has managed to embed innovation as a culture in day-to-day working of the government, and we now want to focus on community innovation. We want to empower the community to offer innovative ideas and initiatives that benefit society, and the UAE government will be ready to embrace these ideas and turn them into reality," he added.

Sheikh Mohammed said that the UAE seeks initiatives and ideas that can improve all sections of the community that promotes standards of living. "Innovation is the framework that helps government entities in applying creative ideas and transforming them into government services and initiatives," he added.

Sheikh Mohammed urged individuals, government entities, corporations, colleges and universities to develop innovative platforms and intensify their research into key sectors, to build an integrated system to support real change in people's lives and reinforce the position of the UAE as a global capital for innovation.

"History has taught us that advanced civilisations were built on the efforts of their sons, who had devised innovative solutions for all challenges. Those civilisations that stopped working, learning and striving for the future collapsed, and were forgotten by history," he said.

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