Creative ideas to make Dubai best city
dubai — As an integral part of Dubai Plan 2021, The Executive Council (TEC) of Dubai launched its fourth edition of creative labs sessions on Wednesday.
Titled ‘Government to People’ this year, the two-day brainstorming sessions will see a total of eight labs discussing topics ranging from healthcare, real estate, arts and culture, empowerment of Emirati residents, to best practices and competencies at the work place.
Giving an overview of the labs, Aisha Miran, assistant secretary general, strategy management and governance at the TEC Dubai, said: “The labs are all about brainstorming and putting together concrete action plans and accelerating in implementing targets and achieving them by 2021.
“These sessions are also a platform to discuss our challenges and obstacles in achieving our targets, identifying opportunities that Dubai can benefit from and in a way that it enhances our competitiveness. Therefore, these different labs vary in their focus and their expertise.”
Talking about the people at the sessions, Miran said: “We have public servants (federal and local), private sector experts, NGOs, youth, individuals, international or local experts speak on certain topics at the creative lab sessions.”
Focusing on ‘safeguarding kids’ was a session being conducted in partnership with the Community Development Authority (CDA). The lab session was how we can provide a safe, secure and protected environment for our kids.
“This is to ensure that we have the right mechanisms, policies, procedures and services in place, firstly to protect a child from abuse and if the child has already suffered abuse, then how to deal with it,” said Miran.
An important part of the sessions was an Emirati-focused lab session titled ‘Empower Me’ that focused enabling Emiratis to be totally financially independent, so that they can contribute as productive members of society.
Talking about the focus on Emiratis, Miran said: “We are looking at Emiratis up to the age of 45 years and seeing if they are qualified to join the workforce, but some reason they chose not to or the system did not support them. This lab session was all about pushing them out of their ‘social benefit’ zone and making them productive, self-dependent and joining the workforce.”
Elaborating another unique lab session, Miran said: “The arts and culture lab intends to use art as the means towards a patient’s journey and treatment. Best practices have shown if a patient sees a beautiful scenery, then it affects his or her healing process. That is why we identified three Dubai hospitals (Hatta Hospital, Al Jalila Hospital and Latifa Hospital) and brought in artists to re-brand, redecorate and reimagine the patient journey.
One other lab titled ‘no going back’ lab session was on protecting youngsters and juveniles from committing the same crime again. Experts discussed about ensuring that youngsters don’t commit any crime in the first place and if they do they don’t ever repeat it or be part of any other offences. This was done in partnership with the Dubai Police.
Talking about another unique lab titled Talented Government, done in partnership the Dubai Human Resources Department, Miran said this lab focuses on government human resources. “This helps us identify what kind of resources we would like to attract and retain in the government, in order to fulfil and realise our vision to be the best government in the world. What systems, policies and procedures will help us in the recruitment, training and development.”
Underlining the message of the creative labs, Miran said: “Through these labs, we aim at accelerating achievement of certain targets, accelerating services to be provided, bringing in the health and the community and have the right data in places.”
Think out-of-the-box It’s a creative way to look for solutions, and certainly one sure way, to bring about better results than conventional ways. Creative labs are fun, and through their structured approach they would bring about a change and allow many of us to rediscover ourselves.
The labs are all about brainstorming and putting together concrete action plans and accelerating in implementing targets and achieving them by 2021.” Aisha Miran, TEC Dubai