QRDI Council joins London Tech Week 2024 as global innovation partner

The Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council has participated at London Tech Week (LTW) 2024 as the global innovation partner.

Bringing together 45,000 attendees across the week, including corporates, startups, investors, and policymakers, London Tech Week was a unique opportunity to showcase Qatarâ€™s thought leadership and value propositions in the technology and innovation space.

The QRDI Council delegation, accompanied by leaders from the Qatar Investment Authority, Invest Qatar, Qatar Development Bank, Milaha, and Qatar University, engaged in critical discussions with international counterparts, underscoring Qatar’s commitment to fostering a robust research, development, and innovation (RDI) ecosystem.

As part of the Global Leaders Innovation Summit at London Tech Week 2024, the QRDI Council led a roundtable session on ‘Responsible & Inclusive Tech: How do we build and sustain an inclusive tech ecosystem?

The invitation-only event session involved key innovation leaders to discuss technology-driven innovations’ impact on people’s lives and work, and to address how to approach mitigating the negative impact of these innovations without slowing their pace.

On the first day of the LTW, Dr Abdulaziz Khalid al-Ali from Qatar University spoke in the panel discussion on ‘The Power of AI to Transform Industries’, in which discourse revolved around the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications on productivity, efficiency and business success.

On the second day, the QRDI Council’s chief adviser for Innovation and Enterprise, Dr Maher Hakim, delivered two sessions.

The first one on ‘Technology Innovation: It Is Not All Rosy highlighted the threats caused by technology innovation and the need of new approaches and tools to steer collective investments in future technologies and innovations.

Hs second session on ‘Financing Your Startup: There are a lot more options than you think! showcased the types of startups and startup stages in addition to sharing the various sources of financing available to entrepreneurs globally and in Qatar.

Milaha’s vice-president for container shipping, Peter Verheijen, spoke in the panel discussion on ‘Green Supply Chains’ Driving Decarbonisation at Scale, discussing key points including transport decarbonisation, lower carbon supply chains, accelerating zero-emissions transitions, and circular supply chains.

QDB senior manager of investment Mohamed al-Emadi contributed to the session on ‘Does Place Matter? Where To Found a Startup and How To Go Global, discussing the various options startups should consider as they think of going global, particularly what is available in Qatar.