Dubai: Influential knowledge experts and renowned personalities from all around the world will be gathering in Dubai to take part in the third annual Knowledge Summit, taking place on December 5-7, at the Grand Hyatt Dubai hotel.

Organised by the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF), the three-day summit will follow the theme “Knowledge … Present and Future.”

The summit, which is held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, will bring together prominent ministers, executives, and intellectuals to discuss ways to boost the production and dissemination of knowledge.

Attending as the Summit’s guest of honour, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott will also be participating in a panel discussion. Sophie de Caen, Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Regional Director for Arab States at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will also be at the event to speak about the role of knowledge in the Programme’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“We have carefully put together a list of the most prominent and influential figures and stakeholders in the knowledge industry to speak at the Knowledge Summit 2016, tackling a host of pertinent future-focused topics,” said Jamal Bin Huwaireb, managing director of MBRF.

The third annual Knowledge Summit will also see the participation of high-ranking experts such as Philip Tetlock, researcher and futurist at the University of Pennsylvania, who will discuss the methodologies and tools of future foresight, and Thomas Frey, executive director and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute.

Also speaking at the summit is Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialisation; Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, and Daniel Kraft, physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and innovator of MarrowMinor.

“The summit provides a platform for these experts to exchange expertise with each other, as well as with all the attendees, in order to formulate recommendations and mechanisms to build knowledge economies and propose solutions for the challenges that may inhibit that process,” added Bin Huwaireb.

The annual Knowledge summit includes the announcement of the results of the Arab Reading Index, as well as announcing the winners of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award, which honours individuals who’ve made outstanding contributions to the dissemination and production of knowledge around the world. A spectrum of events and workshops will also be organised on the sidelines of the summit.