Innovations in Sharjah public, private sectors win praise

Imran Mojib, Special Correspondent

The UAE Innovation Month in Sharjah, running from Feb.8-14 at the Sharjah Book Authority, has been attracting rave reviews as more than 80 Sharjah and UAE government organisations, universities and local and international companies are taking part in the activities, showcasing the best of futuristic innovations, life-changing ideas and scientific advances shaping the future and offering ease of living to residents.  

Sheikh Fahim Bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairman of Sharjah’s Department of Government Relations (DGR), who viewed the participations of local and federal government entities, as well as those of international private companies, expressed his happiness with the various government departments’ participation. The participation reflects Sharjah’s march towards a future of creativity and innovation, in accordance with the vision of Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah His Highness Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qasimi to adopt creative thinking based on continuous learning towards a sustainable future.

A wide range of workshops that were held as part of day five of the UAE Innovation Month in Sharjah attracted a total number of 782 participants.

“OpenSUSE” participated with a workshop entitled “Open Source in Action”, to discuss open source as a culture, how people and organisations contribute and how to become enterprise ready inside “SUSE Factory”. Microsoft, meanwhile, held a workshop under the title of “ Microsoft Teams: a collaboration hub for educators”, providing an in-depth look at Microsoft Teams — a collaboration hub for faculty members and students to communicate, collaborate, and share content.

Through a workshop entitled “The future of everything is AI”, Google spoke about artificial intelligence applications in today’s life, and how it is transforming every single industry, while its second workshop, titled “Google Developer Student Club”, discussed how to establish a student club focused on latest Google Technologies.

Wide Impact presented “Innovation Debate: The public sector is more innovative than the private sector”, a live debate that saw professionals and experts speak on innovation in the public and private sectors.

Scientific Business Solutions SBS, in its first workshop titled “Towards more sustainable future!”, discussed the UN’s sustainable development goals with a focus on the circular economy, such as: sustainable waste management, electricity and alternative fuels, as well as sustainability assessments of waste-to-energy (electricity) generation technologies. The second workshop, themed “Sustainable Solutions in Compliance with Environmental Regulations (Innovative Ideas)”, talked about the relationships between environmental regulations, firms’ innovative ideas, and private sustainability benefits, and the help of innovative ideas to be compliant with national and international environmental regulations.

Pharma Global presented a workshop on “Pharmaceutical market digitisation challenges in Middle East & North Africa region”, which touched upon the transition period affecting the MENA pharmaceutical market and associated challenges, lessons and milestones, as well as how to shorten this transition period. AstroLabs, on the other hand, held a workshop under the title of “Bringing Ideas to Life with no code”, which sought to explain the mechanism of building fully functional applications, without learning how to code.

Sharjah Police General Headquarters participated with a workshop on “Preparing for the Next Fifty Years”, sharing with participants the UAE’s vision and objectives for the next fifty years and the role of innovation in implementing the UAE Centennial Plan 2071. UAE University held a workshop on “Innovation in Leadership”, which discussed leadership of innovation, how to use innovation for effective leadership, cooperation at work to achieve the best results, and encouraging leadership innovation among workers in institutions.

Sharjah Municipality held three workshops — “Health Educator”, to promote awareness among students of the need to wash hands and follow healthy practices, “Innovation Lab”, which allowed children to conduct scientific experiments in an entertaining and innovative manner, and “Future Engineering”, which displayed an AR video on how sites are received by the Municipality.