“Innovation is an essential platform for social and economic development. It has become an essential element to raise competitiveness and create decent job opportunities. It is considered to be the main component for successful entrepreneurship in a competitive market full of challenges,” Osama Al Khaja, Founder and Chairman of Ebtikar Association, told the participants of the Roundtable hosted by Ebtikar Association.
“Promoting innovation can help entrepreneurs to achieve sustainable economic development of their institutions and their businesses. At the moment, innovation is a priority for business leader, and decision makers involved in the development of their countries and the welfare of their communities. It the main characteristic that differentiate between leaders and followers in the world. Bahrain enjoys many necessary components of the ecosystem to promote innovation but we need to unify efforts to fully activate them,” he added.
Ebtikar Association organized a round table discussion on The National Strategy for Innovation under the patronage of Dr. Essam Abdullah Fakhro Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with the Economic Development Board, SMEs Support Center at BCCI and Boston Analytics.
More than 45 selected CEOs and senior officials participated in the event, representing over than 40 different government, semi-government, and private bodies in education, finance investment, industry, technology, and support services sectors in addition to a number of Bahraini innovators and entrepreneurs.
The sessions were managed by experts from Boston Analytics, who delivered a presentation at the beginning about the economies of Bahrain, reality of innovation, and the opportunities and challenges of research and development in the region in addition to its impact on social and economic development. After that, the participants split into six groups to discuss topics related to promoting innovation in the medium term and long term, existing and necessary initiatives to encourage research and development of innovations in order to support the knowledge-based economy in Bahrain.
After that, the groups shared their views about these topics and they discussed them to reach an agreement in order to visualize the drafting of the National Strategy for Innovation and submit it to the government through Economic Development Board. The participants emphasized that Bahrain needs to develop and implement a national strategy for innovation and link it to various economic sectors. Also, they stressed the need to develop effective tools to promote the spirit and culture of creativity and innovation in the Kingdom.
An exhibition of graduation projects for students of Bahrain Polytechnic University was held along the event. Students presented more than ten distinct projects that focus on developing creativity and innovation in several sectors.
“Bahrain’s has immense talent in the country backed by lot of agencies to support innovation. The need of the hour is to create a National Innovation Strategy to harness the resources to drive innovation, which would bring Bahrain on the world innovation map,” Devesh Bahl, Managing Director and CFO, Boston Analytics, said.
“We chose Bahrain a year ago as our first Knowledge Center in the Middle East; the decision was simple – availability of talent and the environment which we could leverage across GCC and Middle East for our Operations. Bahrain has the potential to become the Knowledge Hub of Innovation for the region,” Rajeev Vaid, Managing Director and COO, Boston Analytics, said.