The final countdown to Dubai Expo2020

Expo is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change perceptions of Arab world

There is a tide in the affairs of this nation that is leading inexorably towards Expo2020, which begins in just under a year’s time. Dubai Expo2020 is about the nations of the world coming together to showcase their new technologies, cultures and achievements, but it is indeed far more than the sum of all its parts.

Never before have so many people, from so many corners of the globe, gathered in this nation, in this peaceful land, to celebrate the cause of mankind’s progress.

And never before has a nation, in a broader region that has been all too often marred by so much on so many, carried the hopes and dreams of a generation during a sixmonth exposition.

For the UAE and Dubai, the importance of this event cannot be emphasised enough. This is literally a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to showcase the very best of this nation, its people, its unflinching can-do attitude, its belief in ability, its embrace of the future and the boundless opportunities it affords.

When the gates of Expo2020 are opened to welcome the people of the world, visitors will experience a state-of-theart site that fast-forwards the future to the present, one that accelerates technologies and concepts and transforms them into present-day realities. And here in the UAE, in Dubai, Expo2020 will forever change the old precepts of this region. There are those who look at the images of the Arab world and see but strife, their thinking marred by the few. But for those of us who live in the UAE and fully understand this region, its peoples and cultures, histories and heritage, it is a land of myriad opportunity where possibilities abound, and where potential is limitless.

Expo2020 will change wider perceptions. It will affirm that this is a nation that cherishes the good, sees the positive, harnesses green energies, develops new technologies, envisages a bright future and embraces it with open arms.

The history of these six-month expositions is one of introducing new concepts and technologies, inventions and innovations that change lives. Eight years ago in Shanghai, 4G technology was rolled out — imagine being able to stream a video on a phone? So too were the telegraph, typewriters and even the Ferris wheel debuted at Expos. But Dubai Expo2020 is about far more than new innovations — rest assured there will be many — it’s about celebrating what we can do together. And what the UAE and Dubai has done together.