UAE hands future to a million Arabs

Coding initiative offers a chance to the youth to be part of technological advances shaping our world

rom the very first days that the Founding Fathers of the nation laid the groundwork for growth and progress, the leadership and Government of the UAE have always embraced the need for change and the march of progress. The UAE has long committed itself to a path of preparing for the future, spreading education and learning, making the most of opportunities, and harnessing the potential of technology. And the UAE has never been afraid to share its optimism and boldness with those who seek opportunity and are willing to walk lockstep towards a better future.

Last week, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, launched a new initiative for one million Arabs to receive training and learn computer coding. The reasoning is simple. The future is happening now and it depends on artificial intelligence, computers, the internet of things, and how all of it works together.

There’s an adage that says knowledge is power. That has never been truer than now, for being part of the future now means having the knowledge to fully understand how the wondrous new world of technological change occurs, how the internet functions, how computers exchange information, how their reasoning is formed, and the logic and methodology that ensures the entire communicative and technological virtual infrastructure serves us in our every need. And at the very foundation of that — on which all functions are performed and on which we all depend — is coding and programming.

The initiative is open to all young Arabs and offers an opportunity to embrace change, gain knowledge, be educated in the language of the future, and be a fundamental part of the technological changes that are beginning to impact our daily lives. We all carry phones, each with more computing power than first used by Nasa to put man on the Moon nearly five decades ago. Every day, new technological advances expand our knowledge base as never before, and we live in an age where change has happened virtually, and virtually by the hour.

This initiative offers an opportunity for Arab youth to be part of the future in a very real and fundamental way. It offers an opportunity to be self-sufficient, to be more employable, to become central to the companies that are bringing these advances on a global scale, offering Arab youth an opportunity to broaden their horizons. And that is one that ought to be embraced.