Nurturing the Growth of a National Infrastructure in Emerging Technologies

A fundamental responsibility of the leadership of a sovereign government is to create policies that enable the overall wellbeing of its citizens. This responsibility has many dimensions but certainly wealth generation through industrial competitiveness is a key component. Today a nation’s economic strength rests not only on ownership of saleable natural resources but increasingly on the technical capabilities and innovation capacities of its citizens. This is particularly true in an environment where technologies are constantly emerging to serve as the foundation for new industries. How does a relatively small nation-state, but with significant resources and aspirations, compete and excel in this environment? This article briefly describes an approach taken by the Abu Dhabi Emirate of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to foster national competitiveness in selected emerging technologies in which the nation had previously had very little presence.