Dubai: The UAE’s public and private sector should invest more in digitisation — including artificial intelligence — and establish more regulations around the sector in order to keep up with the fourth industrial revolution.
Marwan Al Sarkal, chief executive officer of the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq), said that while he believes the UAE is on the right track with regards to digitisation, there’s a need for more investment into technology.
“We’re still depending on others — be it car companies or others. We need to start pushing the start-ups and the private sector within the emirates to tell them we’re here to support you. Here, we’ll have to find angel investors and funding to support the start-ups to make this into a success,” Al Sarkal said.
The fourth industrial revolution is a term that refers to the automation wave across various industries and the disruption brought about by new technologies.
And that disruption and the need to adapt and keep up are the focus of the upcoming Sharjah FDI Forum. The two-day event will start on September 19 and will bring together speakers from start-ups and speakers from both the private and public sectors to discuss opportunities and challenges created by the fourth industrial revolution.
Speaking to Gulf News by phone ahead of the event, Al Sarkal said he believes this industrial revolution is going to impact every sector in the economy, rather than just the tech industry. He added that it will also have an effect on moving capital, creating a need to loosen some barriers and establish regulations.
“We have to focus on technology and things that we were dismissing. It [the revolution] will affect the whole business sphere; from construction when it comes to 3D-printing, from mobility when it comes to autonomy, it will affect energy production, it will affect SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] and start-ups. The digital world is going to transform,” he said.
He pointed that, for start-ups particularly, the fourth industrial revolution will mean “huge opportunities”. Al Sarkal said that most large companies will have to resort to SMEs to help with business sectors that they’re not specialists in.
“I was in Germany recently at the IAA, which is one of the biggest motor show exhibitions. They had a full exhibition about future mobility and moving from combustion energy to electric cars... There were start-ups competing to provide information for the bigger companies because they don’t have time to look at certain things, so a lot of start-ups find there are opportunities for them,” Al Sarkal said.
So, what does the fourth industrial revolution mean for the future?
“The future is about automation, the future is about creating smart cities, the future is about getting as much information that is available and putting out in a way that can benefit us. For example, if everything is automised [on roads], you can reach destinations faster and safer,” he said.
The forum in Sharjah will also discuss other topics including the start-up ecosystem in Sharjah and the UAE, and the policies and strategies that drive investments.
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