Business Extra

The world‘s first Commissioner for Future Generations

Does this decision compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs?

 

This is the overarching question guiding Sophie Howe's work. As the world's first Commissioner for Future Generations in her home country of Wales, she enforces a legally-binding plan for national and local government to improve the well-being of Welsh citizens and think long-term.

 

She joins co-host Kelsey Warner this week to talk about how government can implement such a strategy and what it means for the economy. She talks about projects that have addressed an epidemic of loneliness, how to put teeth into enforcement and how a highway plan was replaced with something else - and why.

 

Hosted by Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner

Produced by Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan

 

In this episode:

What does a Commissioner for Future Generations do? (1m 47s)
How to make laws for the future (4m 47s)
How working from home transformed communities (10m 0s)
How to adapt and prepare for climate change (16m 13s)
Replicating Wales's success (19m 2s) 

Read more on our website:

• The future of the daily commute: how going to work is set to improve city life

• Leading futurists to meet in the UAE

• A glimpse inside Expo's Mobility Pavilion

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Airline execs to meet in person for first time in two years

For the first time in more than two years, airline executives will meet in-person at an industry-wide event.

 

The 77th IATA Annual General Meeting (AGM) and World Air Transport Summit will take place in Boston starting October 3, against a backdrop of surging travel demand and an urgent need to tackle the industry's carbon emissions.

 

The National's aviation correspondent Deena Kamel is headed to Boston next week to cover the event.

She joins co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner to discuss her most pressing questions for the industry's leaders and what she expects to top the agenda.

 

Hosted by Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner

Produced by Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan

 

In this episode:

Aviation meets in Boston in-person (0m 44s)
Evolving into a people-focused industry (6m 24s)
The fight for sustainable flights (9m 19s)
IATA's outlook and the relationship between Airbus and Emirates (12m 39s)

Read more on our website:

• Emirates to restore more A380 routes as travel demand continues to recover
• BP, Adnoc and Masdar to produce hydrogen in UK and UAE in clean energy partnership
• Heathrow and BA zone in on net-zero 'perfect flight' using sustainable jet fuel
• Aviation sector pledges to increase use of greener fuels by 2030

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How the UN‘s SDGs get grassroots solutions on a corporate budget with this platform

UpLink was launched at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos in January 2020, with an ambition to accelerate the Decade of Delivery – to source and scale the innovative solutions that would make achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 a reality.

Through co-operation between the WEF, Salesforce, Deloitte and Microsoft/LinkedIn, a crowdsourcing platform was built to connect grassroots solutions with investors, experts and potential markets to help them scale their businesses.

One year later, through a series of challenges, UpLink has unveiled more than 2,500 innovations from 38 different countries to tackle issues ranging from waste to carbon capture and healthy oceans. Entrepreneurs who have pitched investors on UpLink have secured more than $100 million in funding since joining the platform.

To dig into the impact the funding has had and what social entrepreneurs can expect from participating, co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner are joined this week by the WEF's John Dutton.

Hosted by Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner

Produced by Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan

In this episode:

What is Uplink and how is it helping? (0m 39s)
What does scaling mean for Uplink? (9m 30s)
The archetype of problem owners (11m 36s)
Uplink's necessity for WEF (13m 45s)

Read more on our website:

• UNGA 2021: Guterres launches assembly with gloomy 'cascade of crises' forecast
• Majority of world's adults say Covid-19 economic recovery will take two years
• Abu Dhabi releases red list of at-risk species

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Facebook AI, public policy and responsibility in the Middle East

A little more than a third of humans on the planet use Facebook each month, that’s 2.8 billion people in more than 160 countries and growing.

 

Outside its home country, Facebook is under the scrutiny of governments, who are grappling with how to handle the scope of tech companies today, as well as harness their potential for their own economies and people.

 

To help drive the agenda on the future of social media is Facebook's public policy team.

 

Azzam Alameddin is the US-listed company's head of public policy covering the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, where he is responsible for building the policy strategy across the region, as well as creating programmes and collaborations with key policymakers, leaders and academics.

 

He speaks to Kelsey Warner this week about the role of private-public partnerships, accessibility and responsible artificial intelligence.

 

 

In this episode: 

Why AI? (0s 46m)

Public policy at Facebook (2m 40s)

Facebook AI camp in the UAE (5m 50s)

AI bias, diversity and responsibility (8m 17s)

AI community standards (14m 30s)

Public policy making and AI (16m 30s) 

Post interview discussion (18m 4s)

Read more on our website:

• Facebook mistakenly labels black men as 'primates' in video recommendation feature

• UAE and Facebook to train 50 top university students in coding

• Facebook launches Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses

• Google, Microsoft and Facebook spent millions influencing the EU’s digital policies
  
  

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UAE investors and innovators face a pivotal week

Three months ahead of marking its 50th year, a flurry of announcements has given way to a greater understanding of the UAE's roadmap for growth over the coming decades, and plans to attract and support innovation.

 

On Sunday the UAE's leadership unveiled Projects of the 50, a series of developmental and economic projects that will be rolled out throughout September. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi's Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence launched a programme to train the UAE's government and business leaders in the field of AI. And Adnoc's drilling subsidiary has announced plans to float 7.5 per cent of its shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, opening up to international investors for the first time on a public market.

 

Co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner explore the significance of these announcements, and the broader implications for the business community.

In this episode: 

The focus of 2021 (1m 31s)

Projects of the 50 (3m 36s)
Coding the future (4m 43s)
AI for programmes for leaders (8m 33s)
Adnoc listing (9m 42s)

Read more on our website: 

• United Global Emirates: leaders launch campaign to bring world to UAE

• Editorial: The UAE's future priorities in fifty projects

• Government and business elites to be trained at Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI

• Adnoc to float 7.5% of drilling subsidiary in IPO on Abu Dhabi stock market

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Can the Middle East find a point of economic convergence?

The Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia region is at a turning point. There are opportunities for sustainable economic development through reforms and technological shifts but there are challenges in the form of political obstacles and conflict.

Recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic will also be uneven. After the success of a summit in Baghdad this week that brought together regional leaders, Iraq's President Barham Salih said the country has become a “point of convergence”.
Mr Salih said the region was in need of a new “political, security and economic system to meet the challenges of terrorism, extremism and the economic crisis”.

With the fallout from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan likely to require a response from all its neighbours, a regional solution to its problems is needed now more than ever. Co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner break down the current scenario.

Hosted by Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner

Produced by Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan

In this episode:
The Baghdad summit (0m 50s)
The significance of the meeting (3m 16s)
Is Iraq ready to deliver on their ambitions? (7m 17s)
Opportunity for dignity (9m 55s)

Read more on our website:

• Iraq becomes ‘point of convergence’ after hosting regional summit
• Iraq PM urges leaders to work together for Middle East peace
• Mena region faces a ‘turning point’ and needs to press on with reforms as it recovers from pandemic, IMF says

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Start-ups, AI and social change: Zayed University X Minerva

Students at Zayed University began a new bachelor's degree programme on Tuesday. It is the first stage in a plan to transform the way the Abu Dhabi university teaches students over the next five years. The course is designed to build skills in critical thinking and project management, alongside studies in entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and social change. The programme is a tie-up with US education provider Minerva Project, called Zayed University X Minerva.

"For the last 30 years universities have done an abysmal job at training their graduates for the present," Ben Nelson, the founder and chief executive of the Minerva Project, told host Kelsey Warner on this week's Business Extra.
"We need graduates who are prepared for this world right now. And we have to acknowledge that universities fall woefully short in that order." He said Zayed University "not only recognised, but decided that they had to do something about it".

Hosted by Kelsey Warner

Produced by Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan

In this episode:
Challenges and opportunities for students and recent graduates (1m 05s)
Zayed University x Minerva partnership (2m 56s)
The Minerva way of education (6m 54s)
Future-proofing careers (12m 35s)

Read more on our website:

• UAE jobs and salaries: who is applying and how much should they earn?
• Zayed University to transform the way it teaches students over the next five years

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Solutions to youth unemployment in the Middle East

The numbers are striking: over the next 20 years, 127 million young people will enter the labour force in the Middle East and North Africa, but face an unemployment rate of 23 per cent. At the same time, nearly 29 million jobs are at risk of being displaced by 2030 because of automation.

In a new report McKinsey lays out solutions to address the issue of youth unemployment in a changing labour market.

Tom Isherwood, a senior partner at the consultancy, joins co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner this week to discuss how to give dignity and purpose to this rising generation.

In this episode:

Overview of recommendations (0m 47s)

Can the region work together? (6m 54s)

Political challenges (9m 25s)

Youth ambition and what the next generation wants (14m 00s)

Read more on our website:

• Five ways to reverse decades of youth unemployment in the Middle East
• Abu Dhabi's Adio in talks with 'dozens' of companies to set up innovation and R&D centres

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Clean hydrogen explained

Clean hydrogen is one of the most hyped solutions to achieving net zero in time to avert climate catastrophe.

 

While it's true the molecule has a major role to play in decarbonised economies, massive hurdles remain. But Paddy Padmanathan, chief executive of Acwa Power, is a believer.

 

He says over the next decade, challenges around transport and pricing will rapidly diminish, paving the way for a hydrogen-powered future. He joins co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner this week to explain how the universe's most abundant element works, and why it's a viable solution to our planet's biggest existential threat.

 

In this episode:

Code red (0m 56s)

Hydrogen energy opportunities (2m 33s)

Hurdles to overcome (7m 16s)

Who is paying for the development of Hydrogen? (9m 28s)

Race towards 2050 (20m 10s)

Read more on our website:

• Adnoc to sell blue ammonia to Japan's Idemitsu as part of hydrogen strategy
• Britain must double hydrogen production to meet net-zero target
• Climate change: 'Code red for humanity' as UN report warns of disaster

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Can robots care? A conversation with the World Economic Forum's head of AI

Do robots care? What should companies keep in mind before using facial recognition or machine learning? Can new laws being mulled in the EU protect citizens from fast-changing technology?

Kay Firth-Butterfield, the head of AI and machine learning at the World Economic Forum, joins host and The National's Future Editor, Kelsey Warner this week to field these questions, and more.

 

In this episode:

Who is Kay Firth-Butterfield? (0m 38s)

The benefits of AI (1m 09s)

Problems which come with AI (4m 38s)

Policy making in AI (12m 02s)

Ethics and AI (19m 18s)

 

Read more on our website:

• EU's plan to control artificial intelligence 'will have positive global impact'
• MBZUAI president: Artificial intelligence can transform health care and energy
• US: lethal attack on ship in Arabian Sea used explosive drones

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