MUSCAT : Knowledge Oman, the Sultanate’s award-winning knowledge sharing platform has been selected as the “Innovation Partner” for The Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity (the Global Prosperity Initiative), an initiative of the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS), to drive social innovation by engaging the nation’s community.

The partnership is focused on identifying innovators from the Sultanate, including entrepreneurs, start-ups, and SMEs that can design scalable and cost-effective solutions that could create a significant socio-economic impact. As an innovation partner to the Global Prosperity Initiative, Knowledge Oman will provide innovators mentorship, access to its accelerator programs and support to develop reports and whitepapers around socio-economic issues.

“We are honored to be selected as the innovation partner for the Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity, and look forward to engage and encourage the community to collaborate and partner for global good. We are excited to connect with the Initiative’s global ecosystem of start-ups, partners and community of social impact enthusiasts that will help us achieve our mission in transforming Oman into a knowledge-based society,” said Tariq Hilal Al Barwani, Founder of Knowledge Oman.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity is a platform that brings together UN agencies and organisations, major industry and digital innovation companies, NGOs, business accelerators and incubators, start-ups and entrepreneurs, and academics to drive dialogue and action on transformative solutions and partnerships that will solve the world’s most pressing issues. The Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity combines the Global Maker Challenge, an online open-innovation platform designed to promote and accelerate global prosperity through product innovation; and the Global Prosperity Award, a prestigious global accolade that recognises and rewards corporate social responsibility that advances resilience, community, harmony, and dignity across the world, in line with the  Sustainable Development Goals.

Badr Al-Olama, the head of the Organising Committee for the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS), said: “We are delighted to have Knowledge Oman onboard as our Innovation Partner to join us in inspiring innovators to come forward with solutions to solve global issues that will contribute immensely to society and help achieve global prosperity. Through our cooperation with Knowledge Oman, we look forward to welcoming innovators, accelerators and the business community from the Sultanate to positively contribute to the well-being of our world while fostering the Global Prosperity Initiative’s values of resilience, community, harmony, and dignity.”

The Global Maker Challenge consists of four challenges, each targeting a specific global issue which global organizations can adopt as part of their corporate social responsibility. In partnership with UN entities, the Initiative will identify the world’s four most pressing issues that need urgent action on the back of which it organises a series of challenge design workshops to frame actionable questions that determine the four challenges. Start-ups and makers will battle it out to win up to US$1 million in prize money and mentorship in the much-coveted Global Maker Challenge. Each of the winning solutions to the four challenges will be presented to a panel of international experts brought together by the University of Cambridge IfM to demonstrate its socio-economic impact and its contribution to advancing one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The panel will then determine the solution with the greatest socio-economic impact for its adopting organisation to qualify for the Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity Award as a recognition of its corporate social responsibility.

The Global Prosperity Initiative is in its second edition (Cohort 2) and had launched the Global Maker Challenge at the 8^th Ministerial Conference of the Least Developed Countries that was held in Abu Dhabi in November of last year. The Initiative received over 3,400 submissions from 148 countries, with 18% of total solutions coming from across 33 Least Developed Countries that include Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Bangladesh. Overall interest in the Global Maker Challenge has risen substantially since its inaugural edition in 2018, seen by an increase of over 1,000% in the total number of platform registrations with more than 28,000 profiles created. For Cohort 2, the Global Prosperity Initiative renewed its partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SOLVE initiative (MIT SOLVE) – a pioneer in social impact innovation -to assess the entries, in collaboration with a judging panel comprised of 47 globally renowned innovation experts from UN agencies and organisations, major industry and digital innovation companies, NGOs, and academia. The Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity was first launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, during the inaugural Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit, held at the Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi in March 2017.