ABU DHABI, 18th June, 2017 (WAM) -- Sandooq Al Watan, a national philanthropic fund launched by prominent Emirati businessmen to support research projects, has announced landmark initiative titled "Our Future" to prepare the UAE for a post-oil era by supporting the establishment world-class Emirati start-ups. These businesses are set to transform into global companies that will generate massive economic and social returns to the country.
Underscoring the significance of the initiative, Dr. Ahmad bin Abdulla Humaid Belhoul AlFalasi, Minister of State for Higher Education, said "Our Future" is primarily premised to inculcating the culture of innovation adopted by the country and ensuring an investment - conductive environment where the private sector gains more momentum and empowerment to accelerate its contributions to the developmental drive.""The initiative, in addition, helps attract qualified UAE cadres now being groomed by the Ministry of Education in order to support key-sector start-ups conducive to enhancing the country's competitiveness," he noted. For her part, Shamma bint Sohail Faris AlMazrui, Minister of State for Youth Affairs, underlined the importance of empowering the private sector and increasing its contributions to the economic developmental drive in the country. "The private sector's contributions to the economic drive is a major component of the drive toward building a knowledge-based economy that relies on diversification of sources of income and best utilisation of talents with the objective of establishing companies powerful enough to compete with world giants" she noted. Sandooq Al Watan will be implementing the initiative in three phases, the first of which is the "Ideation Phase". Here, the fund will source ground breaking and game changing ideas from the countrys brightest individuals. This includes incentivizing researchers to generate bold ideas and increase patents in vital sectors such as aviation, space, water, and genetics in collaboration with the private sector. The ideation phase will see close to AED30 million distributed to supporting research in key sectors over the course of three years. In its second phase called "Commercialisation", the initiative will begin incubating and accelerating ground-breaking ideas identified in phase one. This will be done through the establishment of innovation centres across the UAE that will provide key services such as training, mentorship, free working space, and pre-seed funding. The first centre is set to be inaugurated in early 2018 in Abu Dhabi. The third and final phase is called "Growth", which will see the fund create a platform that connects established start-ups from phase II with a network of venture capitalists, consumers and experts that would facilitate growth through financing and purchases.Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2017.
