Abu Dhabi: The UAE’s modern history tells a story of achieving feats that would have seemed like science fiction just a generation ago, Kent Walker, executive vice-president of Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety and Google.org at Google, said on Wednesday.
Walker told a packed house at the majlis of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, that a “healthy disregard for the impossible” is what energised innovators across the globe. “That spirit certainly inspired Silicon Valley. Looking around us here in the UAE in 2017, what seemed impossible 10 years ago and science fiction 50 years ago was made possible and is today a reality through sheer bold vision and a relentless desire to achieve results.”
Walker also spoke about the rich history of science in the Arab world, which gave to humanity great thinkers and innovators such as Ibn Khaldun and Al Khwarizmi, who he said was of special importance to Google because he invented the concept of zero, which defines the digital world today.
The lecture at Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi was attended by Shaikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court and a member of the Executive Council.
Walker said it was imperative the governments work towards promoting entrepreneurship and educating future generations about successful entrepreneurs. “The job of the government is unleash the energy of the private sector,” he said. “Making sure that the education system makes heroes of entrepreneurs.”
Walker pointed out the society as a whole is responsible for educating children that entrepreneurs are heroes that contribute to the good of human kind.
As a general counsel of a company at the forefront of innovation, from the way that we find information to the way that we drive cars, Walker does not shy away from legal challenges. As Google has grown — clocking about two trillion searches annually and over a billion unique searches each month — Walker’s team has pushed the legal envelope to meet the new realities of the post-internet, post-Google world.
Walker said while it would be difficult to predict how fast technology will progress and into what direction, machine learning, especially in areas such as pattern learning, was growing fast.
Walker added that as technology advances, it will free the human kind to think about poetry and philosophy and that even as technology takes away some jobs, new ones are constantly created. “Mobile apps developers are now one of the most sought-after jobs,” he said.
Walker said as technological advances continue, privacy becomes an ever more challenging question because different cultures and people have different ideas about it.
Walker said in a culture of innovation, one shouldn’t be concerned about failure. “Failures become fertilisers, experiments for the successes,” he said. “Beyond just embracing failure, you need to have the power of collective success.”
Walker argued we are at an inflection point, where acceleration in innovation is a reality due to the timely convergence of forces, each one with intrinsic promises and challenges including technology for everyone; artificial intelligence and machine learning; innovation in education and future of work.
“Best practices from across the world teach us that government needs to enthuse the community, put in place an effective delivery arm, enact the forward looking policies. These are tough questions, but they reflect a test of whether a government such as the UAE will adopt a policy framework that will benefit the community and will be the driver for social economic development serving as a model for this region and beyond,” Walker said.
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