Dr. Amina Alrustamani, Group Chief Executive Officer of Tecom Investments, has called upon private companies to allocate small budgets for innovation and make innovation part of their corporate strategy.

Addressing the inaugural 20-minute session entitled ‘Media Innovation' at the 14th Arab Media Forum in Dubai on Tuesday, Dr. Alrustamani said that more incentives will be given to companies to realise Dubai's vision for innovation. "People don't take innovation seriously and they think it's embedded in their organisations. Innovation is vital for survival in the modern society. So we started thinking differently and realised that more needs to be done. It is important not only for the government but also for companies in the technological sphere to innovate," she said.

"We have decided to set a corpus fund of DH150 million for innovation for the next 10 years. This fund will be allocated to the private sector for research and studies in innovation. Tecom Investments was established to develop the knowledge economy," she added.

Also, Tecom will be setting up incubators to help private companies to research and explore new ideas which will be shared among other participants. They should be conducting research and studies together.

"Creativity is important and innovation plays an important role in development of the knowledge economy. The UAE ranks first in terms of government innovation and productivity, and it's not by chance," she said and listed achievements in innovation by way of setting up the free zones, Dubai Internet City, Dubai International Financial Centre and other institutions.

Dubai was among the first to realise the importance of innovation and attracted multinational companies.

On innovation in media, she said that research and development play an important role in development of the media sector. The concept of covering news has changed with mobile devices. Advance technology will have an impact on the media sector.

"We also have made developments in the media segment and attracted media organisations, universities and global media institutions. We will be cooperating with institutions to set future curricula as human beings are the source of innovation," Dr. Alrustamani pointed out and said, "Tecom, as an organisation, has attracted innovation, making Dubai a hub, and has partnered with private institutions to implement the innovation plans. We should focus on areas to develop knowledge-based economy."

The Arab Media Forum 2015 is being attended by more than 1,500 delegates from the region and the wider world. A third of the speakers this year are foreign experts. In keeping with the ‘2015 Year of Innovation' in the UAE, AMF 2015 features two key new concepts – The Media Walk which features a brief history of media and Davos-style 20-minute sessions sponsored by Nakheel. Additionally, AMF 2015 features workshops sponsored by DP World.
Source: WAM