Ville Korpela is a professional futurist and a consultant at Dubai Future Foundation
Governing emerging technologies will be the next major issue that global players must confront as they now play a bigger role in companies’ operations. In the GCC, the fragmented nature of the GCC market means that for the Gulf, this could prove especially challenging if collaboration efforts are not met head on.
As emerging technologies become more integral to business processes, the ramifications of their usage require more scrutiny. Many applications, devices, and digital platforms pose ethical dilemmas concerning privacy or algorithmic bias, which risk exacerbating social inequality while also carrying potential for reputational and financial risks for businesses and governments utilising them.
How to enable digital economies to be inclusive to all stakeholders, how to build more ‘open platforms’ for the digital economy to incentivise collaboration and how to create transparent international AI policy frameworks are all fast-emerging challenges.
At the Global Technology Governance Summit organised by the World Economic Forum, panelists emphasised these challenges, and there were even calls for a ‘Paris Agreement for Technology’.
The summit, hosted this year by Japan, was held virtually and leaders from more than 50 countries and 600 companies participated in discussions over the future of how we govern emerging technologies.
As Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations mentioned, “We see fragility in cyberspace, with no consensus on how to take full profit of the digital world that we increasingly depend on.”
Fragility and fragmentation are also evident as we look at the GCC region. On one hand, the region is in many ways leading in the global efforts to embrace emerging technologies, highlighted by the fact that the UAE is the world’s first government to have a minister for artificial intelligence.
Dubai and the UAE have also been the early adopters in blockchain technologies, being among the first countries to enact federal and city-level blockchain strategies.
On the other hand, what is missing in the GCC region, is regional collaboration and integration. Competition has historically been one of the foundations on which the rapid economic growth in the GCC has been built in the last decades.
The global challenges, which we face in today’s world, highlighted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, make it pertinent for governments and businesses to realize that in addition to competition, we need collaboration, if we are to leave the planet in a better condition for the next generation than when we received it from the previous generations.
Instead of more governance, we need more collaborative leadership. Some evidence of this can already be seen. The One Million Arab Coders initiative of the Dubai Future Foundation is one such example, where Dubai has been leading the way to build capacities in the digital economy sector regionally. The UAE’s successful Mars mission was a victory to the whole Arab world, much like the recent listing of Anghami as the first Arab company to list on Nasdaq.
Only by learning to collaborate and speak with one voice will the GCC be able to attract the best talents and capital to the region. I was inspired by reading the declaration by the Founders of the United Arab Emirates on establishing the union from December 1971, where they set out three goals, still present today in the preamble to the UAE constitution: to promote a better life, more enduring stability and a higher international status.
The Museum of the Future aims to strengthen Dubai’s position as a global hub for future and emerging technologies
These three goals still have the potency to guide us in promoting more collaborative strategies in the field of emerging technologies. Technology and the digital economy do not recognize nationality or ethnicity, they are by nature global.
Let’s face it, in many ways, competition is healthy. It forces us to strengthen ourselves, to become more agile, more aware of the changes around us, by becoming more able to foresee, anticipate and manage uncertainty. The future doesn’t exist until we create it. This is a reminder for each of us, both as individuals and as leaders of our respective organisations.
Technology doesn’t develop on its own, it is us who on a daily basis give direction to where we will choose to focus. My take would be, inspired by the founders of UAE, promoting a better life.
Ville Korpela is a professional futurist and a consultant at Dubai Future Foundation. The opinions voiced in this column are his own and do not reflect the official position of Dubai Future Foundation.
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Straight from the future: Emerging technologies present new challenges
Will emerging technologies get the GCC to collaborate?
Ville Korpela is a professional futurist and a consultant at Dubai Future Foundation
Governing emerging technologies will be the next major issue that global players must confront as they now play a bigger role in companies’ operations. In the GCC, the fragmented nature of the GCC market means that for the Gulf, this could prove especially challenging if collaboration efforts are not met head on.
As emerging technologies become more integral to business processes, the ramifications of their usage require more scrutiny. Many applications, devices, and digital platforms pose ethical dilemmas concerning privacy or algorithmic bias, which risk exacerbating social inequality while also carrying potential for reputational and financial risks for businesses and governments utilising them.
How to enable digital economies to be inclusive to all stakeholders, how to build more ‘open platforms’ for the digital economy to incentivise collaboration and how to create transparent international AI policy frameworks are all fast-emerging challenges.
At the Global Technology Governance Summit organised by the World Economic Forum, panelists emphasised these challenges, and there were even calls for a ‘Paris Agreement for Technology’.
The summit, hosted this year by Japan, was held virtually and leaders from more than 50 countries and 600 companies participated in discussions over the future of how we govern emerging technologies.
As Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations mentioned, “We see fragility in cyberspace, with no consensus on how to take full profit of the digital world that we increasingly depend on.”
Fragility and fragmentation are also evident as we look at the GCC region. On one hand, the region is in many ways leading in the global efforts to embrace emerging technologies, highlighted by the fact that the UAE is the world’s first government to have a minister for artificial intelligence.
Dubai and the UAE have also been the early adopters in blockchain technologies, being among the first countries to enact federal and city-level blockchain strategies.
On the other hand, what is missing in the GCC region, is regional collaboration and integration. Competition has historically been one of the foundations on which the rapid economic growth in the GCC has been built in the last decades.
The global challenges, which we face in today’s world, highlighted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, make it pertinent for governments and businesses to realize that in addition to competition, we need collaboration, if we are to leave the planet in a better condition for the next generation than when we received it from the previous generations.
Instead of more governance, we need more collaborative leadership. Some evidence of this can already be seen. The One Million Arab Coders initiative of the Dubai Future Foundation is one such example, where Dubai has been leading the way to build capacities in the digital economy sector regionally. The UAE’s successful Mars mission was a victory to the whole Arab world, much like the recent listing of Anghami as the first Arab company to list on Nasdaq.
Only by learning to collaborate and speak with one voice will the GCC be able to attract the best talents and capital to the region. I was inspired by reading the declaration by the Founders of the United Arab Emirates on establishing the union from December 1971, where they set out three goals, still present today in the preamble to the UAE constitution: to promote a better life, more enduring stability and a higher international status.
These three goals still have the potency to guide us in promoting more collaborative strategies in the field of emerging technologies. Technology and the digital economy do not recognize nationality or ethnicity, they are by nature global.
Let’s face it, in many ways, competition is healthy. It forces us to strengthen ourselves, to become more agile, more aware of the changes around us, by becoming more able to foresee, anticipate and manage uncertainty. The future doesn’t exist until we create it. This is a reminder for each of us, both as individuals and as leaders of our respective organisations.
Technology doesn’t develop on its own, it is us who on a daily basis give direction to where we will choose to focus. My take would be, inspired by the founders of UAE, promoting a better life.
Ville Korpela is a professional futurist and a consultant at Dubai Future Foundation. The opinions voiced in this column are his own and do not reflect the official position of Dubai Future Foundation.
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