Under the patronage of Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan National Security Advisor and Vice President of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Chairman of the Prince Crown Court and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Khalifa University attended the launching of Khalifa Innovation Center. The Center was founded by Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development Khalifa University Tawazun Economic Council and Mubadala Development Company.
His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan emphasizes on the importance of this critical and vital initiative. He aims for the Center to be one of the quality initiatives that will support innovative projects in the UAE.
His Highness added that the driver behind the UAE’s competitiveness was its people and the future will focus on innovative ideas and creative effort. He emphasized that the UAE has charted a path for itself based on creativity and innovation in order to maintain both its distinction and uniqueness at the forefront of world’s countries.
His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan stressed that Emirati citizens are the heart of the UAE’s current transition to a knowledge economy noting that Emiratis have proved both their distinction and ability to keep pace with changes and make accomplishments. He said that in the near future the greatest and largest Emirati investments would be those directed toward building the country’s human resources.
His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed inaugurated a small exhibition displaying a number of ideas and innovative projects that will benefit from the Khalifa Innovation Center’s services. His Highness also conversed with the minds behind those ideas and projects in order to understand their plans and aspirations as well as the constraints and difficulties that lie in their path so that they may overcome all such obstacles.
His Highness also asserted the need to follow up with and support these projects in every aspect in order to achieve the purpose for which they were established and drive the benefit back to their owners.
During the launch ceremony His Excellency Hussein Jassim Al Nowais Chairman of Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development announced that the Center was opened in cooperation with Khalifa University of Science Technology & Research Tawazun Economic Council and Mubadala Development Company.
Al Nowais revealed during the opening ceremony — which was organized within the activities of the UAE’s Innovation Week — that the volume of investment in the Center would reach approximately AED 200m over the next five years. He expects that the Center will incubate no fewer than 1000 innovative Emiratis over five years in order to give them the opportunity to develop their ideas and business models and turn them into investment projects.
He explained that the Center will operate over the next five years by offering an integrated package of financial and technical support in order to provide an umbrella for nearly 130 innovative ideas and empower their owners to transforms the projects into models that can be practically applied. The amount of money granted per idea is expected to reach AED 300 000.
He added that another package of support will be provided to models for distinctive practical application in order to transform them into projects within incubators in Khalifa Innovation Center. This would include financial support of up to AED 1m for ten projects annually. Al Nowais expects the Center to help supply the national economy with a number of projects with value-added and exert a high annual impact by tendering quality ventures with a contribution of no less than 50% of the volume of investment for each through venture capital institutions.
Al Nowais explained that what distinguishes the Khalifa Innovation Center is that it represents the fruit of quality cooperation between the country institutions financing and academic bodies and private sector institutions. The goal is to create a sustainable environment conducive to innovation and innovators in various stages beginning with supporting innovative ideas to developing working models and performance experiences to establishing an investment project and entering into the national economy.
He pointed out that the Fund which is among the government’s approaches for promoting development empowering Emiratis and diversifying sources of income was realized from the first moment His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan may God protect him issued directives stipulating that the year 2015 would be the year of innovation. These directives pushed strategic partners to work to establish a center that would provide an environment conducive to innovation.
Al Nowais pointed out that the Khalifa Fund provided direct cash funding worth approximately AED 1.4bn which 1 130 projects run by Emiratis across the country benefitted from. He explained that the Fund organized more than 470 training sessions in which 7 000 male and female Emiratis participated.
His Excellency Abdullah Saeed Al Darmaki said that the establishment of the Khalifa Innovation Center is an important step towards creating an environment suitable for innovation and the development of an effective system to support innovators in the country.
Al Darmaki stressed that Khalifa Fund is keen to cooperate with all parties to enable the Khalifa Innovation Center to carry out the role expected of it and to contribute to supplying the national economy with innovative projects that enhance its path of transition towards a knowledge-based economy.
Dr. Arif Sultan Al-Hammadi Director of Khalifa University said: “Khalifa University is proud to have been chosen to host this critical national initiative. It evidences various government institutions’ confidence in Khalifa University as a national and regional center for innovation as well as the research centers it is home to the quality of research produced the number of patents it has contributed to and the general excellence and distinction of our students on both the local or regional levels. It also speaks to our unique academic programs at the Bachelors Masters and Doctorate. This will contribute directly to the success of this national project the returns of which will benefit the country knowledge economy and the various sectors that support it.”
His Excellency Saif Al-Hajri CEO of Tawazun Economic Council said that establishing the Khalifa Innovation Center was an important step toward creating an integrated system to facilitate and support the preservation of ideas and innovative projects. The Center achieves this goal by providing the support required such as coaching and other forms of assistance to strengthen opportunities for projects to succeed commercially in the end.
He noted that Tawazun Economic Council was proud to be an active partner in the initiative which brings together the governmental industrial and academic sectors to achieve the common strategic goal of enabling and encouraging SMEs in the fields of science engineering and technology in growing and supporting the state knowledge economy.
His Excellency Hamid Al-Shammari CEO of aviation and engineering services at Mubadala Development Company stated: “We are delighted to be part of the initiative which will bridge the gap between innovation in technology and establishing ventures. It is of the utmost importance that we see industrial ideas capable of becoming commercial ventures and the Khalifa Innovation Center was created for this purpose. The Center will also strengthen our efforts in the field of research.”
During the ceremony the foundation agreement for the Khalifa Innovation Center was signed and its headquarters will be located at the Khalifa University for Science Technology and Research. The agreement was signed by Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi Executive Vice President of Khalifa University for Science Technology and Research and Abdullah Saeed Al Darmaki CEO of the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development and Saif Al-Hajri Executive Chairman of the Tawazun Economic Council and Hamid al-Shammari CEO of aviation and engineering services with the Mubadala Development Company.
It should be noted that the Khalifa InnovationCenter aims to support entrepreneurship in the UAE as well as development of SMEs in the fields of innovation and creativity. The Center strives to transform the results of scientific research within universities into successful commercial ventures in addition to encouraging innovation in technology transfer
launching innovative SMEs capable of competing regionally and globally and reducing the risk of failure for innovative start-ups through training guidance funding counseling and various support services.
