Abdulaziz AlJaziri

Caitlin Morrissey

What is the DNA of Dubai and what traits and attributes does Dubai have?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I was thinking about this question yesterday when I was reviewing it, and I think, for a lot of time, the DNA of Dubai was kind of in the air and no one was able to put their finger on it. But I don't know if you both know about this, but His Highness, in 2019, announced the Eight Principles of Dubai. And I think it just sums up-- I don't know. Have you seen that?

Greg Clark

I have seen it.

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

Yeah. I think more than anything, these eight principles, in a very structured way, do answer a lot of the questions about what makes Dubai, why Dubai exists the way it is and so on. So, I'll just read the headlines of each one. For Dubai, the Union is the foundation: so people understand that Dubai is part of UAE and the UAE is kind of the family that Dubai's part of. A lot of people mistakenly think Dubai is a country, but Dubai is a city; it's part of seven Emirates. And I think much more than ever, now, in the past 10 years, we are extremely collaborative with every Emirate. Dubai works very closely with Sharjah, with Abu Dhabi, with Umm Al Quwain. I work in a building that has federal employees and local employees, and we sometimes wear the hat of a federal employee and a local employee. So, I think for us, understanding that Dubai is part of a much bigger union is the reason of our existence, our success and our growth.

And the other thing is something that I personally love is the second point, that no one is above the law, whether you are a government employee, a minister, whoever you are, you are subjected to the government's laws, the laws of the city, the laws of the country. Even, as another example, I go – just like every Emirati goes – to National Service, which is our army, and you go there for between nine months to a year and a half. The group I was in had the crown prince of Ras Al Khaimah. And my good friend, His Excellency, Omar Al Olama, who's the Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications was in the National Service. The grandson of the president of the UAE was in the National Service. The son of the ruler of Dubai was in the National Service. So, everyone is treated equally no matter who you are, and you're not given an out to any of the requests of the government.

And the third principle is, we are a business capital. I think Dubai doesn't play in politics at all; we really focus on business, which includes a focus on tourism and industries of the future. We don't rely on politics to ensure our competitiveness. We do business with Iran. We do business with other countries from around the world, and it doesn't matter who you are. For us, business is number one; politics is something that we don't meddle in. And there are three factors in Dubai's growth: a credible, resilient and excellent government enacting a fair and open private sector. And public- and government-owned flagship companies that compete globally, that generate income for governments, like Dubai’s Emirates Airlines, or Dubai’s multinational real estate developer Emaar Properties-- all of these big corporations are government-owned, but they play at the global level from a competitive perspective.

The fifth is, our society has a unique personality. And I felt it myself, as I grew up first in an American school run by a Lebanese family. So I was in a school of Lebanese kids with people from every walk of life, from every nationality. I then went to a British school that had-- I did my GCSE's and had people from Pakistan, people from Egypt, people from Jordan, people from the UK and so on and so forth. So, we were always in this mix here, specifically in Dubai, maybe more than the other Emirates. But when someone says-- like citizens of Dubai, Emiratis, I expect everyone here-- as long as you set foot in the country and you're living here, you're an Emirati or a Dubaian to some extent. We are extremely diverse, we are extremely international in our mindset and we're acceptant-- or we co-exist with everyone that's here with us as well.

The sixth principle is that we believe in economic diversification. We have really diversified away from oil. Our big courses are now being challenged - tourism, aviation and so on - but I think Dubai will continue to diversify and explore new industries.

The seventh is that we're a land for talent, and this has been stronger in recent years more than ever with introduction of the golden visa, the retirement visa, the cultural visa, the sports visa, and so on and so forth. Just getting people to spend more time here to be able to retire here, because that was one of the biggest challenges. Dubai is a transient space where, now, we see it more than ever as a permanent home for a lot more people. And my Lebanese friend-- when the disaster happened in Lebanon this year, they started talking to each other. My Lebanese friend was saying, "We're sitting there in Lebanon, and everyone's conversation is, 'When are you moving to Dubai? When are you picking your things up and moving to Dubai?'" Because Dubai is a home to everyone in the Middle East, and they feel very welcome there. But if you come to Dubai, there is an Irish village, there is a Chinese village and so on, and everyone finds their community and that community is part of a much larger set of communities in Dubai.

And in the end, then, everything we try to do is, we care for future generations. We want people to feel like Dubai is not for the person that came to Dubai; it's for their kids and their grandsons. And we're seeing it more than ever now, three generations who've been in Dubai, and we will continue, definitely, seeing that going forward. You remember, Greg, Waleed, who is at HSBC, is Kuwaiti, but he says, "I've moved my family here in Dubai, and I'm sure I'm going to continue living my life in Dubai." And for us, that will continue. There is a million Emiratis, almost, I think, and the UAE is not just for Emiratis; it's for everyone. I think some people forget that. But it's a place for every single person from around the world who wants to live in a very cosmopolitan, very diverse society. Dubai is that for them.

Greg Clark

Abdulaziz. If I may, I'm going to ask just sort of one question which is that I'm very aware, listening to you and also listening to my colleagues, that in the last couple of years, so much about Dubai has become clearer: the articulation of the eight principles that you've just taken us through, for which, many thanks; the introduction of these new visas to create a more permanent, stable population that isn't just a visiting or an expatriate population but people being invited to be part of the long-term future and to create for generations the new Dubai society. Why has that happened now? Because it seems to me it's signalling a shift from a previous cycle, perhaps, of trying to host the world to perhaps trying to become a kind of habitat for the world. What made that shift?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

Greg, just one addition to that. For very long, opening up a business in Dubai onshore had to have a 51% Emirati ownership. That has been abolished as well. I think with time, -- with any country that's going through a big shift-- and in the '50s and the '60s and the '70s, even Dubai, as a city, before the foundation of the union, you had a very small population that you needed to take care of. They needed to grow with you, and they needed to be aligned with you as you grow towards your aspirations to be a global city.

We got to a point, right now, where we are a global city, and we play that role, but it's no longer-- you don't find negative sentiment from the locals any longer of Dubai becoming a place for everyone. You might have found it in any other country around the world. As soon as you start opening up, people think, "OK, what does it mean for me, being a local here, being someone from the country versus someone who's coming into that country?" But I think we realize, with time, is, Dubai hasn't done or been a place for people to come together just in the past 50 to 60 years; it's always been that. And maybe sometimes we forget, but Dubai has always been a place for people to come. They were either here permanently or through a transient sense. We had a lot of families in the UAE, and specifically in Dubai, that were originally from Iran. Some parts of my family were originally from Iran, but they moved here back in the beginning of the 1900s, and Dubai was always a place for them. And more people are finding that Dubai could be a home for them, and it's not just a 'I'm going to go there for five years, make some money, go back home'. Our quality of life is better; our educational systems are better. We've even proven during this pandemic that our healthcare system is one of the best that was capable of handling this.

So, I think many more people are trusting the system that Dubai has, and that Dubai is not just a kind of 'out-of-luck' thing. There is a proper system that ensures that it consistently survives. And there was an article in the Financial Times that someone wrote about Dubai. If you ignore all the article and just go to the last line, he says, "Dubai is a survivor," and that to me is exactly what Dubai is. From even the pearl-diving industry to where we are now. I think people have much more trust in the ability for Dubai to become a global city and continuously grow into that.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much for this. This is so interesting. The next question I have is, what is it that makes Dubai, Dubai, and how many Dubai's are there? Is there one? Is there many? And if there are more than one, on what lines are they differentiated?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I think it depends on who you ask. For me, Dubai is a community of people who love to cycle, people who love to go to the beach, people who like shopping. It's the stuff that I like. But if you ask someone else, Dubai is a perfect place for race car drivers and so on. If you ask another person, Dubai is a great place for culture and for art. If you ask a fourth person, they'll say Dubai is a great place for food, for raising a family, for getting a good quality education. I think each one of us in Dubai creates his own version of Dubai, the Dubai that they like and they like to live in. And that's from a personal perspective.

But if you look at Dubai from an urban perspective, Dubai is very different anywhere you go. It's like, within 20 minutes you're in the desert versus 20 minutes you're on the beach versus 20 minutes you're in the Marina that looks very different - in my opinion, it reminds me of Barcelona to some extent, or London. So, Dubai at every angle or location is very different.

And currently, with Hatta, which is a city that's part of Dubai, for so long, people did not know it was a Dubai exclave, but you've got the access to the mountains, the nature. I went hiking this Friday, and I can barely still walk because I hiked for seven hours. But for me, someone who's been in Dubai for all of my life, that was the first hiking experience I had. But Dubai caters to everyone in my experience, and you can create whatever community that you want to live in, whatever life you want to live in Dubai because it has a lot-- it has pockets of everything. So I think there's many Dubai's in Dubai, and there's one Dubai for everyone.

Caitlin Morrissey

You've touched on, I guess, Dubai and its role as being home to everybody in the Middle East. But are there any other specific roles that it plays that are distinctive to other cities in the region or in the Emirates?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I think for the region specifically, a lot of what happened with the Arab Spring. But because people looked at Dubai as an Islamic city of people very similar to them that are finding success and finding growth and prosperity, where other places in the Middle East did not, I think Dubai showed most of the people around this part of the world, the hardest neighbourhood to be in, that hope was possible. So, I think Dubai specifically, more than anything else, is a kind of role model for the rest of the Middle East.

And funnily enough, in Hudson Yard in New York, people are calling that place 'Little Dubai'. And maybe they're using it with a negative connotation, but for a city that's 50 years old or, a country that's 50 years old, for somewhere like New York to call something new ‘Little Dubai,’ signals growth and prosperity-- maybe they use it with a negative connotation, but I think we see it as a positive thing. A place in the middle of, like, the most advanced city around the world, like New York-- the newest thing that's happening there is being referred to as Dubai so that, for us, is an immense success. In the end, I think Dubai just provides hope, shows people that there is possibility.

We've been having a lot of conversations with our Israeli counterparts in Tel Aviv and so on and so forth, and I think we share with them a lot of similar attributes. I was reading a book - and I'll try to find it somewhere here - and it was about sending a plastic bottle to the moon from Israel. And I would add the third thing that Dubai does very well is, we never settle, and I think they don't as well. But I think if you take these three things and you-- Dubai did not have natural resources, but it had the brainpower, it invested in its people and took in this sense of that 'the impossible is possible'. And that's why His Highness [Mohammed bin Rashid, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai] says a lot of that. His Highness always repeats that we always want to be number one. And it's as simple-- as people just sometimes ignore or don't understand the thinking behind it, just being number one, meaning you want to be the best in education. So, everyone is striving to be better.

And I think if I go further back, where Dubai really showed the growth, it's even in the '90s, so it's 30 years ago or, like, less than 30 years ago. And what His Highness did back then-- we were very similar to other cities around the Arab world, a government that was not fully serving its people. So what His Highness did is, he did something very similar: he wanted to create competition between them. And that was needed back then. So, he said, "Every year, I'll announce the top three government entities, and I'll shame the worst three government entities." And he did it year one, and he was able to identify the best three and publicly said the worst three, and then no one wanted to be at the last end of that list. So every single year we were able, through competition and through a very simple way-- is all he wanted to do is suggest “you all have to be the best, and if you're not, we'll shame you, in some sense."

But we're at a point now where all of our government entities are going above and beyond. For me, a bridge is being built in Dubai every 30 days, unlike every year in Europe. And my family has a house in Switzerland. We've been seeing the same road being developed for the past three years, not because of the sense of competition, but you need to provide for the people and the citizens and the people you are serving now. I think that sense of competition was great. We're now at a place where competition is great, but we need to cooperate now to bring a lot more things to Dubai, because the next phase of Dubai needs a lot more cooperation than it needs competition.

Greg Clark

I have three thoughts I’d like to pick up with Abdulaziz. One is going to be about Dubai's cosmopolitan nature, the second one will be about Dubai and Tel Aviv, the third one will be about Dubai and Singapore. 

So you were saying that, you know, Dubai wants to play this role in the region of being the cosmopolitan hub, and you were also saying a few minutes ago about these important visa reforms and business ownership reforms that make that more possible. Is there somewhere where Dubai understands that being the most cosmopolitan, the most open city in the region brings a certain set of opportunities, a certain set of challenges; it will shape, as it were, Dubai's development path? Is that well understood and articulated, and if so, what is it? To become the New York of the Middle East is a certain proposition, right? So do people really understand what that is, I guess, is the question.

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I wouldn't call it the New York of the Middle East. I think that Dubai's building a model like no other in a sense, and it's a balanced one. If you talk about New York, it's a more fast-paced environment where people are there, really-- it's a capitalist, kind of, in my opinion, nature to that city. But Dubai would love to bring that balance. And I think, similar to other cities around the world, some cities have grown so fast that they've lost touch of who they were. I think Dubai tries to always balance both. And I think, I walk around Dubai, and then we celebrate Diwali, and we celebrate Christmas, and we celebrate Eid, but I think His Highness does this well as he's able to identify and give the spotlight to different parts of Dubai at different times. So that we're not ignoring one part in favour of the other, where we all coexist, but one of us shines sometimes versus the other. And there's always a balance.

But if it's articulated in a certain sense, I'm not sure if it is-- but I don't feel like-- I'm not against the development of Dubai. I don't feel that as an Emirati, someone who's lived here. I'm so proud when I look outside my window and I see what the city is versus what it used to be when I grew up. But if I talk about my father, who was born in the '60s, early '60s, end of the '50s, for him, it was driving to Abu Dhabi was the dirt road. For him to see where Dubai is, he's also extremely proud of where we are. And he is proud that if my grandfather was not able to go to university, he was, and his kids can go to really world-renowned universities. For us, development is always a positive thing. It comes with the challenges, but if we just focus on the challenges, we'll never be able to move forward.

Greg Clark

Very, very helpful. There’s a lot of excitement about the potential future role of Dubai and Tel Aviv now that there is the new agreement, the corridor is open, the bilateral relationships are beginning to emerge. What's exciting in that proposition for you, and how do you see that emerging?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I think for so long we were in this-- there was a lot of, I would say, opinions about Israel from the Arab world. But I think it all made sense: if we don't align with Israel, if we don't agree to Israel, if we don't open up to Israel, then there's no way for peace going forward. So I'm 100% aligned with the direction of the country on that. And we've been having a lot of different-- I've honestly had-- I have a meeting a day with an Israeli counterpart from Israel here in Dubai, and I've been invited 50 different times to Israel by now.

But I think something interesting happened-- is we need to start having conversations, having lunches, having dinners with our Israeli counterparts before we even start thinking of business. I think we need to align like us and the UK. I think we're friends. We've had alignments; we agree to each other. We've flown to the UK. You've come here for the last 50 years, if not more, and there's a lot of agreements. There's a lot of friendships with people in the UK and England and so on. But I think we never had that with Israel before or Tel Aviv. So, I think it doesn't make sense for us to jump into business, to jump into a building like a corporation or so on before we start having lunches and just getting to know them, getting to spend time with them. We're very similar. We're very similar in the way we think, the way we run business, the way we run the country. But I think, for so long, we were very close but very apart. I think we just need to really build really strong ties and friendships with them before we do anything else.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much for this. We have a question about Dubai's greatest inventions and its greatest discoveries, and are there any that stand out to you, or is there a particular innovative mindset that sets Dubai apart?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I saw the questions, and I think that question and the question after it align very strongly with the leadership and the kind of inventions here. I think it's not about the tallest building in the world or about The Palm or the Museum of the Future - the new iconic building in Dubai - I think it's just the spirit, it's the ability, it's the drive from our leadership. Sheikh Mohammed is-- you sit with him-- I've been in a few meetings with him, and I'd love to spend much more time with him to learn from him. But just understanding His Highness and the the people that work very closely with him, they have been and they've seen Dubai grow, and they've gone through every single crisis. And it's that sense of, 'no matter what it is, how do we take it to the next level'? And my colleague always says, "We can't strive for utopia or be held on dystopia. We need to look at protopia." We understand all of the challenges, understand all of the issues that we're facing, but we need to move forward. And maybe that translates into one word that I call 'relentless'.

When His Highness finished the Palm Island, he's like, "What's next?" When we finish a big event or a big project or we deliver on something, our thoughts is that-- OK, we celebrate for like two minutes, but our idea is, "What's next? How can we make it better?" And I think, in that sense that we want to keep striving for more, which I think, is the best invention that Dubai has. And the leadership have instigated that from His Highness, through the Crown Prince, whose biggest drive is to ensure collaboration and teamwork. Because the only way we can go to the next level of Dubai is with teamwork from private sector to government, from government to government to so on and so forth. It's getting everyone in the same room, everyone on the same table to agree together.

Caitlin Morrissey

I want to come onto the question next about myths and things that people-- or, in fact, misconceptions first, things that people believe about Dubai that aren't quite true and where you think those have come from.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that Dubai is an import of ideas, but it's not the creator of ideas. But if you start really spending time here, you'll see the total opposite. Other misconceptions is that Dubai is glitz and glamour without all of the thoughts and so on. But just go-- I've been meeting a lot of the-- my brother is 22, and him and his friends are really having different conversations than people expect. They don’t expect the cars and the shopping. It's like they're having ideas about, where does Dubai want to go, where does humanity want to go and so on and so forth. And people think Dubai is shallow, but I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions. Go away from the tallest building around the world and go into Al Quoz that's building a very cultural narrative in Dubai. Go to different places. Entrepreneurship is booming in Dubai, and so on. But one of the biggest misconceptions is the import of ideas versus the export of ideas, and I think we are exporting a lot of ideas in Dubai to the Middle East and to the world.

But one of my-- but the most annoying one is when you have people who have never been to Dubai and ask if you still live in tents and take on camels. I always say, "Yes, we do", and ignore that comment because a lot of people still think of the Middle East as one [place]. We are one, but I think they still think of the Middle East as something from the early 1900s. But even if you go to Saudi right now, Culture is happening there. There's a lot of different things. Jeddah's beautiful, Riyadh's beautiful and so on and so forth. We go to Kuwait. I love going to Kuwait. I think my favourite city in the Arab world is Kuwait, the amount of ideas and the amount of thinking that's happening there. So, I think that's the most annoying comment I always get, about the tents or the camels.

But that's one of the biggest misconceptions that the-- people don't know what's happening here. They don't know what's happening in Dubai. I think we've done a good chunk with the marketing with Emirates Airlines and so on, but there are still people from around the world that really don't know. They think women don't have rights in Dubai. And I think (they do) more than ever, I think there are more-- well, 50% of the parliament is women. We had a woman leader in parliament. Almost 40% of our cabinet is women; 70% of our government is women. Equal pay at government level, private-sector level. From an education perspective, more women graduate from universities than men. I work in a team of more females than males. We always complain about male empowerment in the country, and people just-- they have a misconception about women in parliament, or the country. I think more than anywhere around the world, I think we have more empowerment for women than anywhere else.

Greg Clark

Abdulaziz, I mean, one of the things-- one of the obvious conclusions from what you said is that there is a kind of strategic communication challenge here that-- I do recognize your point that, you know, people misunderstand Dubai. Certainly, a few years ago, if you said to people around the world, which city is Dubai most like, they would be more likely to say Las Vegas than Singapore. And I think that, particularly when you have a visitor economy of that kind, where that kind of form of leisure, particularly the link with retail, you know, and casinos and everything else, this sticks in the mindset a little bit. So I think that maybe there's a kind of strategic communication agenda here. And I guess the Expo, the Future's Museum, which I hope you're going to talk about it in a minute, are a key part of telling the world a different story about Dubai in the next 24 months, not because-- you can never eradicate ignorance, but you can at least make sure that people have no excuses for their ignorance.

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

Agreed. Agreed. I think it's on our part, to be honest. I think there's a lot of stuff happening from a soft power perspective, getting more people to know more about Dubai, a lot more targeted kind of campaigns, but as well-- definitely, I agree that's our biggest challenge. But I think, like you said, the Expo. But I'd love to go deeper, even, in the museum and the idea of the museum, I think. And what we believe the museum can give people from around the world is that the museum is really a centre of hope and giving people hope about the future. I think a lot more people are afraid of, 'AI is going to take my jobs', or automation is going to take away a lot of people's jobs, so on and so forth. But we want to show, what the museum is, the ability that the future is much more bright than people are expecting. So I don't think-- Caitlin, have you seen the building of the Museum of the Future? 

Caitlin Morrissey

Yeah.

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

It's outside my building, but I'll definitely send you a snap after I do this. But the whole idea of the Museum of the Future is really-- because when we started the World Government Summit, which was something very similar to Davos-- is getting governments from around the world to come together in one place to discuss case studies and best practices, to be able to elevate everyone in government. Then His Highness said, "Let's talk about the future of government and the future of different societies, different entities, different industries," and so on. The biggest challenge there was, no one wanted to read a report, so His Highness said, "Let's build something that's very different. Let's build an experiential kind of movie-set experience."

And every single year, at the World Government Summit, we have to do something different, from talking about climate change to talking about AI to talking about Humans 2.0, what it means to be human in the future. So, His Highness said, "Let's build a permanent museum like the Museum of the Future." That museum, the gist is, taking people from outer space to inner space. And the idea there is, we want to talk about space, we want to talk about things that are much more communal things, that are much more collaborative things that you do with people. And when you talk about space, it's less about countries and more about Earth and the role of us as countries coming together and the role of kind of the human race in a more intergalactic kind of the future. So that happens on the top floor.

And then you go into the second floor which is more about cities. So we talk less about the Earth, and we talk more about countries and cities and so on. And we wanted to show-- like, talking about climate change, talking about forests, talking about what happens if we lose the Amazon, and can we recreate the Amazon, and can you play an active role doing that. So it's a lot more tangible; it's a lot more experiential. Really, it's like you're walking into a movie set. And I don't want to ruin it for you guys. I hope you come next year during the expo or before the expo. We haven't decided on a date yet on when to see it, but it's a beautiful experience.

And when you go from outer space to inner space, you then end up at the human level, at your own personal level of having your thoughts. And that's our only floor where we take away everyone's phone because we want you to have a very personal experience. I think that's the only floor with not even one digital screen where we wanted, really, people to understand, the future's not technology-based: it's more on well-being, on your own growth and your own reflection on yourself and so on. So ,it really is a structure of outer space, inner space that I believe is going to be beautiful at the museum. But the essence of it is that you want to see, touch, feel and hear kind of the future and really use your senses to see that.

But it's also looking at every challenge that we're going to face in the future and showing that if we all come together, we can really design a better future for everyone. So I think the idea is, we want people to go in, kind of scare them for a little bit and then show them that the future is bright and then get them to be active, whether they go into a program at the Dubai Future Foundation, wanting to start a business on a specific thing, wanting to learn about a specific technology, you want to be an advocate for a specific change. But it's a much more experiential experience for everyone else.

Greg Clark

It's going to be wonderful. 

Caitlin Morrissey

So we sometimes ask the question about traumas and shocks that a city has experienced and how it responds to those, whether they-- well, you've already mentioned that Dubai comes back from those and improves. Let's talk a bit about that. What are some of the shocks, and why do you think Dubai has this approach that is to reform and to take away a positive experience from those?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

Every shock, I think, that Dubai has gone through, I think, people in Dubai, the leadership in Dubai trusted Dubai. No matter what comes and hits it, Dubai and its leaders and its people trust that we can go forward, and we can develop. I think our biggest challenges with every shock wasn't the financial crisis, wasn't the pandemic; it's media, to be honest. It's, a lot of times, people devalue the thinking, everything that goes into building Dubai like it is. It's one of the safest cities from around the world, has one of the best quality of lives. It's really built for communities from every walk of life. But I think every single challenge that we had, we trusted that we'll go through it. I think our biggest challenge was really the media, a lot of scepticism from a lot of places from around the world, I think. And like Greg said, we're not always the best at replying to them or building a better image outside of what's actually happening inside, but I think just the scepticism of media trying to devalue Dubai's structured growth. They keep calling it, 'it's lucky' and 'it's built on luck', but I think that's never the case. So for us, I think battling the scepticism from around the world of what Dubai is and what Dubai has built has been the biggest challenge.

So that, for me, is the shock that we will continue to keep getting until, I think-- and I don't know if we go back to history of cities-- and maybe, Greg, you know more about this-- and maybe other cities have faced the same thing when they're growing-- is if you hear a city in Africa, [Nairobi?] or so on and so forth being developed, there's scepticism around it. I don't know why people like to build scepticism around people trying to build growth and trying to build a better life for themselves. But I'm sure there was scepticism about Singapore back in the day and so on and so forth. But everyone gets to a point where they pass that scepticism from the media. So I think that's the biggest shock.

Greg Clark

I think that's very well put. We won't go into all of the examples, but you can imagine there was great scepticism about the emergence of American cities in the 1700s and huge scepticism about whether Hong Kong could ever be a viable city and, in the '60s, a lot of scepticism about Seoul and whether it would ever become an important place. And, of course, as you said, Abdulaziz, Singapore, there was scepticism about whether it would actually survive in the '60s and the '70s, so you're absolutely right. 

Caitlin Morrissey

And that's an interesting one because it's almost more pervasive and seems extremely difficult to deal with. And so I think one of the final questions that we have is about what the future holds for Dubai - and you seem like the perfect person to ask - and how Dubai's DNA will shape this?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I think specifically, for now, we're looking at the future of Dubai. We're definitely discussing that internally: where should we go, where should we invest in and what industries we should develop? And we've taken multiple different approaches to identifying what the future is, from bringing futurists together to understand what Dubai thinks and should do versus working with government employees from their perspective or taking a very more consulting approach of where Dubai should look at or a more human-centred design approach of really talking to people, what they need, where they think Dubai is. But I think whatever approach we take, the work will definitely be different.

I think Dubai is really going to focus much more on its creative output, its intellectual output, its knowledge output. And I think every country and every city around the world is going to really re-identify, relook, reimagine itself. So I think there is multiple routes for Dubai. I think whatever route it takes, we're full on with it. And I think it's always bright. I think every city has a bright future with the right kind of mindsets and visions that you place for it.

And I think Dubai always has a long-term vision for itself. It's on a four-year vision, or it's on an eight-year term vision. It's much more, always, longer - 50 years, 30 years, 20 years - because it's a generational change that we need to embed in Dubai. And you build an industry, it's not built overnight. It needs to take much longer. So our future is being built right now, and it's definitely being shaped right now, but it would only come to fruition later on.

Greg Clark

Abdulaziz, I have one question about this, which is a genuine, simple question, which is, how will the articulation of Dubai's future come about? You know, those of us who study Dubai are used to, every 10 years, there's a new strategic plan or a new strategic vision. Will there be something like that, or will the next articulation of the future vision look and feel different?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I'll definitely say it looks and feels different. I'll definitely say it won't follow the regular previous visions, and it won't be something very similar to what I think everyone has seen. It'll be much more targeted, much more aligned. I think it will be much more human from my perspective. I think a lot of the times, our strategies make sense to governments and to privates, but they don't make sense to the people. I think the next strategy will much more be derived from the human perspective.

Greg Clark

More soft power.

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

More soft power.

Caitlin Morrissey

So we have one very final question, which is, if we were to have asked you the right question, would there have been anything else that you would have wanted to say about the DNA of Dubai?

Abdulaziz AlJaziri

I think no matter what I say or whoever you meet-- whoever says, if you don't set foot and don't experience it personally-- I think Greg has and that's why he speaks very highly of Dubai most of the time. I think a lot of people-- going back to the misconceptions is, whatever you had, when you do step foot in Dubai, it's very different.