How Majlises are helping shape the nation’s future
The President has established Majlises to engage youth and help them in efforts to prepare the UAE for the next 50 years
he President, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has always been keen to empower the youth of the UAE with various skills to shape the country’s future.
It was against this backdrop that he initiated the Mohamed bin Zayed Majlis for Future Generations (MBZMFG), a celebration of a collective power to shape the future of the UAE.
MBZMFG aims to provide an innovative and sustainable model to maintain constant communication between the nation’s youth and its leadership, and ensure all available means and resources are employed to train young Emiratis to create better opportunities for the future.
By connecting leaders with youth around a programme of transformative learning experiences, MBZMFG encourages innovative thinking and the professional development of the UAE’S next generation of leaders.
Because the future is in the hands of the youth, it is critical to support their development, future-proof their skillsets and facilitate their success.
By connecting youth with UAE leaders and pioneering thinkers, MBZMFG builds engagement around core Emirati values and ideas that will shape the future.
MBZMFG determines the ideal solutions for promoting and accelerating young people’s development in various fields and sets the stage for them to contribute to the nation’s sustainable development.
The Majlis seeks to engage young people in the nationwide efforts to prepare for the next 50 years.
Mohamed bin Zayed Majlis
The President also established the Mohamed bin Zayed Majlis, which hosts distinguished experts in various fields, politicians, academicians, and religious scholars because of his love for dialogue.
The Mohamed bin Zayed Majlis believes in the importance of dialogue, understanding the others’ point of view and reaffirming the high value of exchanging ideas in order to enrich debates and contribute to a deeper understanding of and better solutions for the various issues that can impact future societies and human life.
Based on this belief, the Majlis has continued to host a distinguished number of selected scientists, thinkers, intellectuals, experts and religious scholars from all over the world every year to express their perspectives and experiences on general public issues and vital concerns related to the requirements of our age.
The Majlis has hosted Tony Blair, former prime minister of Great Britain; Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, former Conservative Minister of State for Trade and Investment, UK; Professor Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank; Nobel Peace Prize winner Bill Gates; and Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state.
By connecting leaders with youth around a programme of transformative learning experiences, MBZMFG encourages innovative thinking and the professional development of the UAE’S next generation of leaders
Ramadan lectures
During Ramadan, the Mohamed bin Zayed Majlis organised a series of lectures, which discussed issues of interest to individuals and societies.
The third Ramadan lecture, titled ‘How to solve the biggest global challenges through innovation’, which was hosted at the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, and attended by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was presented by Edward Jung, founder and chief technology officer at Intellectual Ventures, the largest invention fund in history.
Jung explained that the world needs a new model of innovation and a new system of incentives, technology development, finance, and R&D to tackle today’s biggest global challenges like building efficient cities, ageing, climate change and education. One of the top 12 inventors in history with over 1,200 issued US patents across diverse fields, Jung said the world had become very good at building smaller solutions.
The start-up economy solves targeted problems very ably, the former Microsoft chief architect said, adding that a lot of the problems facing us now greatly exceed the abilities of single companies.