Chancellor Zaki Nusseibeh Address to the Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit

Conference Center Export 20 Dubai November 22, 2021

It is my pleasure to address you today as you consider the role of digital technology in advancing prosperity across countries in the Middle East and Africa. Digitalization and artificial intelligence are the engine of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The question before us today, is how the power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution drive opportunities for young people across the region. The engagement and employment of young people in social and economic regeneration lies at the heart of building resilient, stable, and secure societies. Including them within the process of transforming manufacturing, investing in their capabilities, and promoting the development of their skills is essential to sustainable development.?

My interests in speaking to you today are twofold.?

First, my professional service in this nation’s government is predicated on its overarching strategy of promoting productive relations between peoples and institutions in all domains. Our government sees this as a necessary condition for sustainable development. The primary tool is human ingenuity and creativity. When people share their creative ideas, they collaborate, grow in mutual understanding, and form bonds. Their relations are positive, productive, and long lasting.

Second, I also serve as the Chancellor of the United Arab Emirates University. As the ‘University of the Future’, our mission is clear. We pursue research and innovation that serves the UAE’s national agenda and strategy. We promote innovation and implementation?of advanced technology, the promotion and development of science-based education, and the balance between industrial growth and environmental sustainability.?We drive Fourth Industrial Revolution applications to promote industrial productivity with a reduced environmental footprint. We generate solutions for a resilient, sustainable society. Educational innovation is central to our efforts. We must ensure young people have the knowledge and skills to take leadership positions in building their own futures.?

Today you will address questions about how to use digital technology to promote prosperity across the region, and for young people. Clearly, these questions lie close to our own agenda.?

It is fascinating to think of the revolutionary potential of digitalization, digital innovation, and digital entrepreneurship. Digital technology and data science have the power to transform society. They allow us to process greater amounts of data faster, gaining powerful intelligence to improve decision-making. They allow immediate access to information by a greater amount of people. Geographical and organizational barriers to communication are removed. Artificial intelligence and intelligent data management breaks down barriers between scientific disciplines. We experience new interdisciplinary connections - between pure science, engineering, medicine, and human sciences. These connections are transforming our ideas and practices, opening new possibilities about what it is possible to do.

The potential of digital technology is not in doubt. Your questions today are about how to take advantage of this potential.?

First, there is the question of the role of young people.?

The young people we are speaking about are, of course, a generation that has been born into the digital age. The pandemic showed us that young people were the most adept at making the transition to a digital world, at coming up with digital innovations, and at consuming digital technology.?

The pandemic forced acceleration in the invention of technologies that overcame the problem of restricted access to physical places. This has been to the advantage of young people, largely because it removed the financial and time costs of travel. It also removed more invisible obstacles – of lack of position and status. In the online environment there is no hierarchy around a physical table. A young man doesn’t have to ask permission to take up a seat, and he doesn’t have to wear a business suit. A young woman simply has to log on, share her screen, and she has the platform to voice her ideas. Communications technologies bring together on a screen people who might otherwise not have met in person. Junior and senior people from across the world can join together to share their?ideas.

These are positive developments. There are, however, many other barriers faced by young people. What do young people need? What will allow them to harness the broader opportunities of digitalization and digital technology? How can their engagement serve the regeneration of the industrial and manufacturing sector??

Second, there is the question of regional regeneration.?

Digital technology has the potential to overcome barriers to economic development. These are barriers such as lack of infrastructure, human capital, and financial investment. Satellite technology gives us access to the internet, without wires and cables. We can connect to the internet using relatively cheap hardware like the smartphone. This makes it easier than ever before to communicate, to trade, to gain qualifications, to access information and science, and create international profile.?

The removal of barriers presents us with an unprecedented opportunity. How can we take advantage of it??

Third, there is the question of regional competitiveness.

Let us think of the unique advantages of our region, and its diversity of nations. Let us examine our cultures, our traditions and heritage, our ancient technologies, our climates and geographies, and the worldviews and experiences of our peoples. We must identify what makes us distinct, and use it to offer innovative products and services, something new with a competitive edge. Let young people tell us about their own visions for their local communities. What are their ideas about how digital technology can help the environmental, social, and economic security of their communities??

We must ensure that our solutions honor, celebrate, and serve the treasures of our regional context.

Fourth, I refer you to the overarching sustainable development goal, of building partnerships.?

I want to recall the vision of a famous industrialist – the rubber manufacturer and businessman, Harvey Firestone. He said, “Capital isn’t that important in business. Experience isn’t that important. You can get both of these things. What is important is ideas.”?

Therefore, let us involve young people in partnership. Young people have the ideas, but they do not have the capital and experience we have. We must make these available to young people. When we involve young people in partnership, we cultivate their ideas with our resources – our knowledge, skills, finances, infrastructure, and our connections to leaders and influencers.?

You propose, quite rightly in my view, that young people have an essential and central role to play both in finding answers to questions of industrial regeneration and using digital technologies to drive the solutions.?

Ladies and gentlemen,?I wish next to speak of the innovation cycle, and its multiplier consequences.?

I truly believe that those consequences are of great virtue. They also have direct connection with your agenda today.

First, in order to innovate, we need to work together, and we need a collective desire to solve problems.?

Second, when we innovate and create something new, we gain a sense of self-worth, of purpose, of being engaged.?

Third, this process of working productively with other people forms bonds.

The multiplier consequences of innovation are cooperation, a feeling of value, and positive relations with other people. It is for this reason that I believe that the innovation cycle is a valuable method to engage young people.?

Therefore, our talented young people must be involved in creative discussions and problem solving.??We must connect them with stakeholders across industry, business, community, capital investment markets, and government. In this way, young people become part of the innovation cycle and the process of creating their futures. They will be productive, and they will create bonds and networks.?

A few words about universities.?

Universities prepare young people for their future roles as leaders in many fields of human endeavor. They are also engines of scientific invention and discovery. Today, universities are accountable for the value and utility of their education and research; they must address the challenges of our time.?

As I mentioned, the United Arab Emirates University is known as ‘the University of the Future’ and harnesses the power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We transform our traditional disciplinary structures using digitalisation, advanced technology, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Multidisciplinary groups work together in new ways to identify and solve novel problems, innovatively. Our specialist research centres create innovations in the service of many sustainable development goals. For example, they focus on biotechnology, food security, the health sciences, water and energy, human happiness, green infrastructure, and green mobility. Our curricula are interdisciplinary and specialist, focused on skills development and career preparation for leadership in innovation and entrepreneurship.

However, I observe ever more often that universities cannot achieve innovation alone. This is a realisation that I cherish as a motivational force because it calls for universities to collaborate.?

Of course, universities have always worked together with other universities in the global academic system. But this is no longer enough. Universities can only serve their purpose as engines of innovation if they are embedded and engaged in networks with other stakeholders. Universities must partner with industry, NGOs, government, community organisations, commerce, agriculture, private sector laboratories, cultural institutions, and primary schools. If our innovation cycle is to have impact and value, then we must bring to the table the widest range of interests and resources, agendas and complaints, ideas, and questions.?

Therefore, I congratulate the GMIS for its call for union, partnership, and networks. Partnership is the key to addressing?the future of industrial manufacturing – identifying the right questions, generating ideas, finding solutions, and gathering resources together. And young people can and should be part of our partnerships.

Let me lend a word of caution.

Digitization can improve opportunities for young people, but it can also exacerbate inequalities. Digitization advantages young people who have access to funds, broadband networks, and hardware and software. It advantages young people who have access to education and training. Digitization can favor young people in cities, and young people with access to networks of well-connected and well-resourced friends and family members.?

Therefore, we must be careful in our development plans.??We must develop policy advice and guidelines to recognize and address barriers and inequalities of access and opportunity. We also need to pilot a variety of partnership projects and evaluate them, mindful of equality of opportunity and parity of advantage.?

I would like to conclude with an example of such a project from the United Arab Emirates.?

Recently, the Arab Youth Centre launched an initiative to orientate young leaders in the technology sector.?

The ‘Technical Fellowship Program for Arab Youth’ is a program that aims to empower young people in the sectors of technology, innovation, big data, and the digital economy. The program was created on the principle that Arab young people are rich in energy and talent. It identified that young people need access to training, technical resources, and a supportive infrastructure. When we combine talent and energy with training and infrastructure, young people are empowered to realize their ideas and ambitions.?

The Technical Fellowship Program qualifies a new generation of leaders in digital technology. It motivates young people to develop their ideas and create business plans. Young people follow a program of integrated technical and practical training. They connect with leading industrialists, manufacturers, and inventors.?

The result is a partnership of talented young people working with businesses. This forms teams capable of building solutions using augmented and virtual reality technologies, artificial intelligence, cloud technology, financial technology, distance education, cybersecurity, and hardware and software technologies.

You will ask how this became possible. Of course, partnership was crucial. To develop the program, the Arab Youth Center worked with Accenture. To implement the program, we engaged partners across the technology sector:?Schneider, Google, Cisco, Canon, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle Academy, Jibril Network, G42, Ericsson, Dubai Internet City, Huawei and LinkedIn. Young people worked in both government and private sector institutions.

To conclude.

We sit at the cusp of a revolution.?Digital technologies are not a passing trend. They are the centre of transformations in every aspect of business, government, society, and individual lives.?

I have argued, that to take advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution countries in the Middle East and Africa must work in partnership. Young people must take part in innovation cycles to nurture their ideas using resources of partners. Young people are invested in their future, they see the problems facing their communities, and they have the creative talent to identify solutions. Universities, governments, community organizations, business in the industrial and manufacturing sector all have the responsibility to ensure that young peoples’ ideas come to life. We must combine the wealth of our different resources – financial, educational, practical, technical, and experiential – and make these available to young people in partnership.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will engage young people and develop their digital talents by forming partnerships of multiple stakeholders. It is through partnership that we will work towards prosperity, security, and sustainability in our region.

Thank you.