Dubai: Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Dubai Future Foundation, has met with the heads of Dubai government entities to discuss the next step for the Dubai 10x initiative.
The Dubai 10x — x symbolising experimental, out-of-the-box future-oriented exponential thinking — was launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, at the World Government Summit earlier this week.
The initiative sets the government of Dubai on a mission to be 10 years ahead of all other cities.
“The future belongs to those who effect radical changes, not those who make minor, gradual improvements. The future will not be as patient with us as the present. Today, I am calling on all government leaders and employees to embrace disruptive innovation and find new, creative and truly disruptive approaches and technologies to delivering their mission rather than incremental and minor improvements. We are a young and energetic government who wants to be leaders in disruptive innovation and technology,” said Shaikh Hamdan.
Disruptive innovation
He pointed out that succeeding in becoming the best government in the world requires everyone to adopt a culture of creative disruption, allowing not only Dubai’s tools and systems to be enhanced, but also “our mindsets to be revamped, upgraded and open to embracing disruption”.
‘Disruptive innovation’ refers to exploiting available technologies to deliver new or existing services in radically different ways that are design thinking-based and customer-focused. This concept is different to incremental innovation, which focuses on making good services better for existing customers.
Disruptive innovation will create new operating and business models that replace traditional services and provide multiple times the value for end users and customers.
In four weeks, government entities will have to identify the Dubai 10x team that will represent them, picked out from the entire organisation and known for their high levels of creativity and disruptive design-oriented thinking. The organisation must also present their plans to address the three elements and a detailed plan of the types of opportunities that the X-Unit will explore. Within six months, Shaikh Mohammad will carefully review curated disruptive solutions by each government entity. Within a year, at least three scalable prototypes need to be presented to the world at the next cycle of World Government Summit.
“We want to achieve real, impactful and 10x happiness outcomes for society and establish a unicorn government that becomes a platform to deliver moon shots,” said Shaikh Hamdan.
The plans for each entity will be under the supervision of the Dubai Future Foundation and overseen by the Dubai 10X Council, which will be chaired by Mohammad Bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the Dubai Future Foundation. The council will have the following members: Humaid Al Qutami, Mattar Al Tayer, Hussain Nasser Lootah, Saeed Al Tayer, Sami Al Qamzi. Helal Al Merri, Mona Al Merri, Talal Belhoul, Sultan Bin Sulayem, Ahmad Bin Byat, Abdullah Al Shaibani, Abdullah Bin Touq, Abdullah Al Karam and Khalid Nasser Al Razooqi.
Box: Three stages
Dubai government entities are required to produce and implement three specific elements and present them to Shaikh Hamdan and Shaikh Maktoum Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, within one month:
1. X-Units for each government entity: the first requirement is for every government entity to set up an independent X-Unit — and staff with adequate resources — mandated with the objective of finding ways to disrupt their own organisation’s practices and develop their own moon-shot solutions to deliver beyond their mission. They can be Dubai 10X RTA Unit or Dubai 10X Dewa Unit.
2. Trial and scale radically disruptive organisational structures, systems and technologies: The second requirement is for government entities to develop systems, processes and labs to trial and scale radically disruptive technologies and approaches in order to deliver on their respective missions. This plan will also need to involve reviewing and reconsidering the traditional organisational structures and hierarchies of government organisations and finding new structures that facilitate creative innovation and disruption.
3. Collaborating with and facilitating disruptive solutions and removing regulatory obstacles: The third requirement is to develop processes and methodologies that will allow each Dubai government entity to work with truly disruptive companies and start-ups that radically offer better services or allow Dubai’s residents to lead a happier life. Regulatory obstacles facing such disruptive companies should also be removed to allow for their uninterrupted operations.
