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Dubai Future Foundation has launched a special edition of its knowledge report, “Future Opportunities Report: 50 Global Opportunities,” which addresses the most promising opportunities that can be built upon to build influential international partnerships and launch comprehensive projects and initiatives to empower youth around the world and design a better future for future generations.
The report was launched in conjunction with the approaching date of the “Summit on the Future” organized by the United Nations during the period from 22-23 September in New York City, USA, to discuss the opportunities that the future holds for youth and future generations.
This special edition includes the views and insights of 14 experts from research and academic institutions from the UAE and various countries around the world, including Canada, Italy, India, the United States and Australia, who presented their own visions on opportunities related to youth and future generations, empowering communities, providing solutions to the most pressing human needs, stimulating innovation among individuals and communities, and enabling humanity’s transformation to the new reality and innovative economies.
The report stated that the youth segment, aged between 15 and 24 years, constitutes about 16% of the world’s population, or about 1.2 billion young people. This percentage is expected to increase by about 7% by 2030, reaching about 1.3 billion young people, but their proportion of the world’s total population will decline over the coming decades.
This report constitutes a global call for policy makers, officials, and leaders of governments and communities to unify future plans and strategies and take advantage of current and promising opportunities to work together to achieve growth and prosperity and enhance the quality of life for youth and future generations.
Through this knowledge report, the Dubai Future Foundation aims to share its vision of the future with experts, partners, institutions and international organizations to discuss the most important future opportunities that can be achieved in the short or long term, and to keep pace with the most important global transformations and trends identified by the report, including the materials revolution, the acceleration of the transition to the new digital reality, the redefinition of humanitarian goals, and the growing interest in advanced health and nutrition.
The opportunities discussed in the report included reversing the traditional career path, so that young people at the beginning of their careers receive financial support to devote themselves to exploring their future interests. This may restructure the work system in light of radical transformations and the emergence of new work models. Here, the changes raise pivotal questions about the future of work: How will the form of work change? Will work remain as important? And how can we find new opportunities in light of the decline of traditional job objectives?
The report pointed to an important future opportunity regarding the necessity for boards of directors and boards of trustees in companies, the government sector and civil society to include individuals from all generations, so that this diversity becomes one of the most prominent principles of corporate governance and a main rule in all legal, regulatory and international standards.
The report stated that dispensing with the traditional arrangement of classrooms may contribute to providing secondary school students with confidence and flexibility, enhancing their psychological health, and enabling them to explore future possibilities and make informed decisions, within environments that fully adapt to their personal needs and provide them with diverse knowledge.
This shift is essential for the future of generations to come, as the skills required in the job market in the 21st century are very different from those required in the past, as employers are now looking for skills in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and digital culture.
In the education sector, the report also highlighted the importance of radically transforming education programs based on the concept of wisdom, which enhances students’ ability to think logically and culturally openly and acquire the skills needed to address the complex challenges that emerging technologies pose to young people and the elderly. Focusing on wisdom can enhance the ability of young people and future generations to navigate increasingly uncertain times with a thoughtful and sustainable approach.
The report also addressed the importance of the government and society focusing on ensuring the highest levels of happiness, quality of life and self-development for future generations, so that governments make self-realization a priority in all their legislation, which affects the priorities of their various policies and the priorities of their citizens as well, especially since in light of the transformations in the economy and the future of the labor market, striving for self-realization becomes an inevitable necessity to ensure a prosperous future.
The report also touched on the 30% increase in the time people spend at home, which has led to an increase in demand for all home-related services. As cities continue to expand, population growth and climate change, people are expected to continue to live in densely populated environments, increasing the challenges associated with resource management. Smart homes that are able to communicate, anticipate our needs, translate our thoughts and feelings and adapt to them, environmental requirements and global policies, are a radical transformation in our lives and provide unprecedented opportunities for achieving the highest levels of comfort and efficiency.
Opportunities highlighted in the report also include making paid community service legally available to all, changing perceptions of work, community cohesion, community and environmental engagement, and giving individuals the opportunity to contribute to their communities before starting a new career or life stage.
A promising opportunity in the healthcare sector is the development of portable devices equipped with advanced nanotechnology that can instantly identify bacteria, allowing patients to be treated more accurately and quickly, without the need for time-consuming bacterial tests.
The report stated that AI that is available to all will enhance the concept of equality and stimulate innovation efforts by enabling individuals, academics, startups, and the government sector to improve the quality of AI models’ capabilities and enhance their credibility, and increase trust in AI systems that are available to all, which is vital and important for youth and future generations.
