DUBAI - Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and The Future, and Ahmad Alkhallafi, Managing Director for UAE & Africa at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch GovTech, an initiative to develop innovative digital solutions tailored to the needs of government entities.

The initiatives aim to improve government operations, and address emerging technological challenges quickly and efficiently, while involving start-ups and business incubators in the development of innovative solutions for government projects.

Under the MoU, HPE Digital Life Garage and its partners will support the UAE government and federal entities by examining their technology requirements and challenges, and providing them with innovative solutions. The initiative will tap into the capabilities, resources and expertise of tech start-ups and business incubators contributing to the development of digital solutions for government services and operations.

Al Roumi confirmed that GovTech offers a new platform for cooperation between the UAE government, HPE and some of the region’s top start-ups to build new tech-powered government experiences. The initiative provides federal entities with a fast track to ground-breaking locally developed tech solutions, resulting in leading technological products capable of improving the efficiency and performance of government entities, elevating their digital competitiveness, and enhancing their readiness for the future.

Al Roumi further noted that the partnership supports government endeavours by designing reliable and tested digital products and services in the UAE, and developing flexible government work models that reflect government aspirations and "align with our goals to drive government performance and provide the world’s best government services."

Ahmad Alkhallafi said, “I am delighted to partner with the UAE Government to support them in their efforts to advance government development. From the beginning it has been one of our top priorities to help government organisations accelerate their digital transformation and tech innovation across the region. Within the framework of GovTech together we will leverage the capabilities of HPE’s Digital Life Garage and create solutions that are crucial for government organisations to address technological challenges, enhance efficiency, and accelerate their digital transformation journey.”

The HPE Digital Life Garage in Dubai is the first of its kind worldwide. It focuses on four key elements: Digital Innovation Exhibition, which is an accelerator incubator for the culture of innovation across various technologies, Digital Life Lab, which incubates workshops to come up with innovative concepts and transform them to pre-production presentations, and Digital Knowledge Centre, which translates ideas into tangible outcomes that enrich people's lives and professional experiences.

The fourth element is the HPE Global Network, which provides access to international programmes and communities, while also bringing together a wide range of institutional ecosystems, researchers, inventors, entrepreneurs, firms, government entities, universities, and service providers, including companies focusing on systems integration.