Dubai to have world’s first aviation X-Lab
> FROM PAGE 27 It will invite applications from internal teams, independent engineering teams, academics, and startups, to help address these challenges by spending a full year working with the seniormost industry executives and regulators to ideate new technologies and business theories, run experiments, and develop prototypes.
Finalist teams from around the world will meet in Dubai each April for an annual event where they will pitch their concepts. Winners of the pitch event will relocate to Dubai the following month along with their corporate and government counterparts to begin a rigorous curriculum co-created with the world’s top academic and innovation institutions.
Area 2071 was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, to become the experimental nucleus of the Centennial Plan 2071.
“With the addition of the Aviation X-Lab, Dubai is further proving itself as the largest X-Lab in the world. We are proud to share our experience with aviation, as home to the world’s international largest airline, with the aviation community,” said Mohammad Abdulla Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs & the Future and Chairman of The Executive Office.
Applications for the inaugural Aviation X-Lab will open in November with the first pitches to be presented to the public in April of 2018. Area 2071 is a creative ecosystem to design the future that brings together government, creative individuals, businesses, and people from all walks of life. The name Area 2071 originates from the UAE Centennial Plan 2071, the naming of which signifies 100 years since the formation of the nation. The UAE Centennial Plan 2071 seeks to invest primarily in the youth of the UAE and to work for the UAE to be the best nation in the world by 2071.
— issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com