The Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (Dafza) will unveil its ambitious innovation strategy at the ‘UAE Innovation Week’, which opened today (November 22).

The freezone aims to build on its services plan to identify top-priority services that drive and sustain innovation and determine improvement opportunities along request, processing and delivery channels across the entire services life cycle.

It will also explore possible additional services based on local, regional and international benchmarks as well as outputs from tenants that will add to the levels of innovation within the organization.

Speaking at the week-long event, Dafza chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum will focus on the six key executable innovation enablers - Process, Technologies, Governance, Skills, Capabilities and the Culture -  necessary to stimulate innovation and achieve the goals of its innovation strategy.

The Dafza move is aimed at developing best-in-class innovative solutions to catapult it among the most innovative free zones in the world.

Lauding the high levels of competitiveness in Dafza, Sheikh Ahmed said the innovation strategy was embedded within the free zone's operations and ambitions thus enabling it to top all other innovative free zones in the world.
 
Dafza’s innovation strategy aligns with the UAE National Innovation Strategy and has the overarching objective of establishing Dafza as a world-class innovative organization.

This compelling innovation strategy has three distinct goals: the delivery of value-added best-in-class innovative solutions, the adoption of working styles that inspire creative behaviors across the organization, and alignment with and active contribution to the UAE’s National Agenda through innovation.

It also defines three key roles for Dafza within the national innovation ecosystem: an innovator lead role that directs and owns the innovation process, a capital provider that offers financial and physical resources to relevant local stakeholders to advance the country’s innovation initiatives, and a staunch promoter of the UAE’s national innovation efforts in line with UAE Vision 2021.
 
Dafza, he stated, had focused its efforts on creating and adopting “new-to-the-region” and “firsts” amongst free zones.

Dr Mohammed Al Zarooni, the director general of Dafza, said its innovation strategy was a strong, enthusiastic and determined response to the Dubai leadership's call for a sharper focus on innovation as a pillar for the nation’s sustained development and global leadership.

"Innovation Week is an ideal vehicle for launching the strategy as we will be able to express our solidarity in supporting the most innovative ideas from the government and private sectors as well as from the public," stated Al Zarooni.

As part of Dafza’s innovation strategy, various processes were put in place backed up by governance and technology that can support in the identification and shaping of new innovative ideas.

The setting up and launch of a dedicated Dafza Innovation Unit (DIU), embedding and stimulating innovation work style and focused innovation planning be it innovation training on creative thinking as well as innovation behaviour coaching are all an integral part of the free zone's innovation framework, he added.-TradeArabia News Service