Sheikh Mohammed tours Museum of the Future in Dubai on Wednesday.

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, today toured the Museum of the Future, the new global scientific landmark provided by Dubai to the world, on the occasion of its eagerly-anticipated grand opening.

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council; and Sheikh Maktoum Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance accompanied Sheikh Mohammed on the tour of the new landmark.

Sheikh Mohammed said: “The UAE is betting on the future. It focuses on harnessing efforts, minds, resources, and capabilities to foresee, design and build it. The Museum of the Future is a major leap in Dubai's and the UAE's journey towards building a knowledge-based future economy, employing advanced technology in all development sectors, and contributing to creating an inclusive scientific and intellectual movement.

His Highness continued: “The Museum of the Future, with its ethereal design and unique concept, reflects Dubai's and the UAE's philosophy that there are no limits to our ambitions, and nothing will stop our accelerated march towards the future. The UAE will continue to play its role in driving the Arab world’s knowledge movement to serve the region's people and societies.”

Sheikh Mohammed added: "The Museum of the Future is another landmark among the many scientific and knowledge initiatives and projects that Dubai embraces within the UAE's vision to Reignite  Arab Civilization, evolve Arab minds, and advance the Arab world and its people. The Museum of the Future will be a space for knowledge that gathers intellectuals and futurists from all over the world. It is the largest research space of its kind, accommodating all ideas, experiences and creative conceptions."

A global incubator for tomorrow’s solutions

The Museum of the Future embodies the world’s largest idea lab and will serve as a talent incubator for scientists, thinkers and researchers. By convening them, the Museum will create a launchpad for enabling initiatives, scientific programmes and human knowledge projects that aim to contribute to the UAE and the region’s efforts to drive social, economic and human development.

In addition to creating a regional scientific, knowledge and creative movement, the Museum of the Future will contribute to building Arab bridges with a selection of the most important global scientific, knowledge and intellectual centres. It will inspire with its initiatives, projects and experiences, members of the global scientific community to continue developing innovative future solutions that transform the challenges facing humanity into promising opportunities.

A trip to the Museum of the Future encourages visitors to become active participants in imagining and designing the future. It’s open to everyone to propel humanity towards the future, and discover new horizons for tomorrow’s world.

The Museum of the Future represents an unparalleled opportunity to live and breathe the future in its various dimensions. Visitors can experience the future within a connected and integrated world that touches on various aspects of human life and its interaction with the environment around it. The Museum employs the latest technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, big data analysis, artificial intelligence and human machine interaction to encourage visitors to ask questions about the future of humans, cities, human societies and life on planet Earth and in space.

Home to humanity in the future of space

At the start of the tour, Sheikh Mohammed viewed the orbiting space station (OSS Hope), which has been designed as a home for humanity in space.

OSS Hope takes visitors on a virtual journey into outerspace, where they discover and learn about various missions and research projects that are underway onboard the station. On completion of this first mission inside the Museum, visitors return to Earth, to discover an imagined environment of what Dubai and the world looks like in 2071, following efforts to restore the health of the planet’s biodiversity and its resources.

Save the planet’s lungs

His Highness also stopped at the ‘Vault of Life’, which deploys cutting-edge virtual and augmented reality technologies to introduce visitors into an interactive experience where they collect samples from nature while exploring the biodiversity of our rainforests. Their task is to contribute to the efforts being made to restore the natural environment, rehabilitate the forest with its living species, plants and animals, and help repair the damage inflicted on the forests.

His Highness listened to an explanation of the nature simulator, which allows visitors to list the living organisms they contributed to saving virtually, and then analyse them with the aim of providing a digital visualisation of their potential impact on restoring life to the forest ecosystem that forms the lungs of the planet.

The Museum of the Future will work to promote the dissemination of knowledge, develop tools and capabilities to foresee the future, design its solutions through research and studies, monitor the most prominent transformations and new trends, and shed light on the most important scientific discoveries and new technological innovations.

Partnerships create the future

His Highness also visited the ‘Tomorrow Today’ exhibition, which includes advanced and pioneering technologies that can help shape the future of humanity. Featuring more than 50 prototypes and currently available products, the exhibit is experienced in five main areas: planning future cities and communities;

enhancing agriculture and irrigation solutions; providing food security for humanity; managing waste sustainably; and protecting the planet’s environment.

For tomorrow's generations

His Highness was also briefed on the ‘Future Heroes’ platform, which has been designed for children under the age of 10 to stimulate scientific curiosity among the youth and encourage them to explore the world around them. 

The Museum of the Future takes young people and younger generations on a future journey that expands their positive view of our world and enhances their confidence in their abilities to make a positive change. It also consolidates their belief in the potential of humanity to affect significant change and reinforces their conviction that nothing is impossible with science.

Imagining the future starts with the individual

His Highness was also briefed on the ‘Al Waha’ area of the Museum of the Future, which offers visitors an opportunity to reconnect with themselves, away from the distraction of external influences and always-on technologies. It takes them to a world that simulates the senses and heightens their response mechanism to external influences, in an environment that focuses on physical health and mental clarity to create a future free from distraction. This allows them to meditate and enhance the natural balance within them without the use of technology.

Also accompanying Sheikh Mohammed on the tour were Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Media Council; Sheikh Mansoor, Chairman of Dubai Sports Council; Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the Museum of the Future; Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan, Deputy Chief of Police and General Security in Dubai; and Khalifa Saeed Sulaiman, Chairman of Protocols for the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE