Dubai Future Foundation Hosts EY Wavespace Center Within Area 2071

Dubai Future Foundation announces that it will be hosting the EY wavespace™ center within Area 2071 in Dubai. The EY wavespace center is the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and is part of a global network of EY growth and innovation centers, known as wavespace™.

Together with Area 2071, the founding partners and the wider ecosystem, EY aims to solve the issues affecting organizations and society as a whole, with a focus on customer experience and citizen happiness, in the immersive wavespace environment that encourages collaboration and co-creation. The expected opening date of the EY MENA wavespace is September 2018.

Abdulaziz Al Jaziri, Deputy CEO at Dubai Future Foundation, said: "The EY wavespace hub will serve as a key platform to find innovative solutions based on future technologies, in line with the vision of Area 2071 for the UAE to be the world’s leading nation by 2071.”

He added: “The collaboration with EY is in line with the vision of Area 2071 to expand its partnerships to become the main hub and incubator for future technology companies, start-ups, services and smart laboratories. The vision of Area 2071 and EY wavespace are also very much in line with the UAE's Artificial Intelligence Strategy, to enhance government performance in various future services, sectors and infrastructure projects.”

Joe Murphy, UAE Country Managing Partner, EY, said: “Within wavespace, EY will be working with clients to address their most important challenges, help them thrive in this age of disruption and navigate through the fourth industrial revolution. The center in Dubai is part of EY’s multi-million dollar investment in 16 flagship hubs located in the world’s innovation hotspots. In this innovative and immersive environment, our clients can work collaboratively to understand the impact of disruptive innovation and how it can be leveraged by organizations, governments, regulators and communities at large.”

Each wavespace™ center has a range of technological, geographic and sector focused specialism. With dedicated teams of multi-disciplinary practitioners in disruptive innovation, the location will be equipped with collaboration technology.  These flagship centers will become the home for all EY digital, analytics, cyber and innovation talent and capabilities. They will connect Dubai into the global network of wavespace™ facilities as well as leveraging EY’s network of over 260,000 people worldwide, across different disciplines and industry sectors.

Kapil Raghuraman, MENA Advisory Digital Leader, EY, said: “What excites us about Area 2071 is its fundamental intent to create provisions that act as catalysts for change, whether that’s to improve government functions, drive happiness or better the wellbeing of citizens. Were incredibly excited about these possibilities and the ability to work with the founding partners to create joint teams that can help to build a better working world. Wavespace will allow the government and businesses to explore innovative new ideas to stay relevant in the Transformative Age. We can do this at wavespace by co-creating in an immersive and collaborative environment to develop new business models and unlock hidden potential through the use of emerging digital technologies.”