Innovation lies in the integration of products and solutions, says experts at `Frontiers of Innovation Forum’

Emphasising innovation as an essential constituent in creating the UAE among the top five nations, Canon Middle East, one of the world's leading imaging products and solutions companies led an expert panel discussion `Frontiers of Innovation Forum’ in partnership with MEED.

Some of the senior industry leaders who participated in the forum included Dr. Ayesha Habib Al Mutawa, Chief Innovation Officer, Ministry of Health & Prevention; Anurag Agrawal, Managing Director, Canon Middle East; Luciana Soledad Ledesma, Manager, Innovation and Creativity-Innovation and the Future, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority; Ayman Aly- Professional Solutions Marketing Manager, Canon Middle East; Dr. Bashar El- Khasawneh, Graduate Programme Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering Khalifa University; Dominic Wright, Co-Founder, Generation 3D and Khaled Antoun, Sales Manager, Canon Emirates.

The speakers and panelists discussed the UAE Innovation Targets and how it is aiming to be among the Top five nations globally and win a Nobel Prize. The other areas which were discussed was the need to foster an environment of risk-taking and tolerance of mistakes and 3D printing opportunities for the future.

A vital outcome of the discussion was that innovation is critical in all industries, but when one talks about innovation in health, the reference is about people’s lives. The discussion also revolved around the UAE government playing a vital role as an enabler of innovation.

In his opening remarks, Agrawal focused on the continuously evolving digital world and how governments are adopting new technologies as they continue their shift towards building smart cities. He also emphasised Canon Middle East’s commitment to be aligned with the vision of the government by innovating in imaging solutions to support their smart city ambitions and the needs of today’s tech-savvy youth.

He also highlighted the company’s newly launched products, including the ‘8K Camera’, ‘120MP Camera’, ‘250MP CMOS’, ‘Sensor 4 million ISO Camera’, and ‘Intelligent Imaging for Life’, while also emphasising the importance of launching new technology products and updates, with a huge focus on sustainability.

Dr. Ayesha Habib Al Mutawa, extensively spoke about on ‘UAE’s Innovation: From vision to reality: The quest for the Nobel prize’. She underlined the importance of organisations opening networks and relationships, while also collaborating to generate additional value.  She referred back to a quote given by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, in which she emphasised the importance of innovation and investing in a diversity of sectors to avoid any possible misfortune in the future.

Her speech also highlighted the fact that the UAE was ranked 1st in the Arab world and 41st globally by end of 2016, which is an improvement from the previous year where the country was ranked as 2nd in the Arab world and 47th globally. “As we continue to witness technological breakthroughs, the aim for the country by 2021 is to be among the top five countries globally and consequently win a Nobel Prize for this new achievement,” she further added. 

Other major highlights of the event included two panel discussions on ‘The endless possibilities of the 3D printing market’ and ‘Utilising technology to challenge and revolutionalise current processes’.

Panelist, Aly highlighted the limitless opportunity which 3D printing has to offer and Canon`s plan to service in all the emerging regions, in which they do not have a presence. Dr. Mohamad highlighted the huge positive impact of 3D printing when it comes to surgery, in which a patient’s kidney was healed by using this technology.

Dr. Bashar El- Khasawneh was impressed to see a positive response to the adoption of 3D printing among the audience and the panel members, especially Dubai Health Authority. It is important to have the conversations such as the ones we had today to identify the challenges and discuss how we can overcome them. The future for 3D printing in the UAE is quite promising given the push from the government to adopt the technology in a variety of sectors such as construction, health, aerospace and many others.   

The second panel discussion included Shadi Bakhour, General Manager, Canon Emirates; Rohit Majhi, Senior Manager, Monitor Deloitte; and Zabeen Bint Ahmed, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, SEVIA and provided the audience with an in-depth analysis on what exactly defines an innovative solution and how it should be implemented.  

Bakhour explained how an innovative solution can be linked to where it is operating and how a dynamic country such as the UAE makes it easy to push through new technological innovations. The government is playing a vital role as an enabler of innovation, and encouraging new ideas and services to help in the technological evolution of the country.

“Innovation is the hottest of hot topics in the UAE,” says MEED Editorial Director Richard Thompson. “The UAE’s Vision 2021 strategy puts innovation at the centre of the country’s ambitions to become one of the world’s most creative and forward-looking nations, and its National Innovation Strategy identifies the potential opportunities to drive the innovation agenda in the emirates. The challenge now facing us all in the UAE is: How can we change the way we live and work to turn the vision into reality? Frontiers of Innovation brought together innovators from business and government to address this issue. The forum was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and experiences and to help us change the way we work and make the most of emerging disruptive technologies such as 3D printing, the Internet of Things and Big Data. It was a highly productive event and I look forward to many more such happenings in the future.”