Dubai: The local IT industry should receive a boost from new initiatives from the public and private sector.
Microsoft Gulf said it is talks with Dubai Government to set up a Microsoft Innovation Centre. The centre would be a partnership between academia, the public sector and the private sector.
The theme would be "digital lifestyle", and sponsor applications for digital homes, digital communities and the digital city, according to Vimal Sethi, developer and platform group director at Microsoft Gulf.
Recently Microsoft set up a similar centre in Kuwait focusing on government services.
"We are the final stages of conversations and many parties are involved," Sethi said.
The reasons for the lack of innovation locally are many. The low levels of venture capital (VC) funding for IT - ironic in a high liquidity market such as the Gulf - is exacerbated by a lack of awareness among college students, Sethi said.
"If you say VC, most students have no idea what you are talking about," he said.
Also, recent reports have warned that the fear of failure is another impediment to the growth of entrepreneurship.
"The UAE does not lack entrepreneurial capacity, it lacks entrepreneurial confidence and formal financial support facilities," noted a report called The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2006.
"The common stereotype of entrepreneurial activity within the UAE is that things are 'booming,'" the report stated. "However, this is a strong misconception and could not be further from reality."
"News of failure in an enterprise may well quickly permeate the close knit national community," it continued. Instead, "avoiding the risk of failure by not starting up a new enterprise seems to be the option of choice."
Sure to have an impact is the recent $10 billion education endowment from Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
In a May announcement, he described "knowledge-based" sprouting in the UAE and surrounding countries, and that spending on scientific research should be boosted.
The endowment should nurture a new generation of young businesspeople, said Charbel Fakhoury, general manager of Microsoft Gulf. "If you ask anyone in the Gulf, the greatest challenge today is staffing," he said.
