Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) and Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (Added) have launched the region’s first Technology Innovation Pioneers Envirotech (TIP ET) Award to advance innovative solutions to global environmental challenges.

In line with the National Innovation Strategy aimed at positioning Abu Dhabi as the leading hub for technological innovation and solutions to global environmental challenges, the award was launched last month at the St Regis Saadiyat Island Resort in Abu Dhabi on the side-lines of ’Blue Week’ and the ’World Ocean Summit.’

Led by EAD, TIP Envirotech is the latest awards programme under the Technology Innovation Pioneers (TIP) Awards, a joint initiative by UAE Ministry of Economy and Added.

The new award is a strategically important platform designed to accelerate the path towards achieving the objectives set within the UAE Vision 2021, as well as the goals of Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 and the longer-term ambitions identified under the UAE Centennial 2071, a statement said. The award is a platform that offers innovators and entrepreneurs the opportunity to present and pitch creative ideas and inventions to leading investors who can help turn their projects into practical applications.

With HSBC as strategic partner, the inaugural edition was launched by Dr Mohamed Yousef Al Madfaei, executive director of the Integrated Environment Policy and Planning Sector, EAD and Salem Bin Shabib, Advisor of Innovation and Patents, Added.

The new award aims to tap into technological innovation that can create significant impact in the areas of clean energy, ocean conservation and single-use plastics. The clean energy sector is seeking innovative technologies, products and services that will enhance the production of clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from sectors that consume huge amount of water and electricity.

For ocean conservation, it focuses on innovation which protect coastal and marine biodiversity from marine pollution, ocean acidification, and overfishing caused by industries, desalinated water production, aquaculture, and shipping and dredging. It also seeks to find new solutions to the mounting problem caused by single-use plastics pollution and targets to reduce plastic litter along a product’s life cycle through material and product design and manufacturing, consumption and disposal, waste treatment and waste clean-up.

Bin Shabib said: “The launch of the award is testament to our organisation’s commitment and continuing efforts to further develop key economic drivers in the emirate, including the environmental sector, towards strengthening its economic diversification strategy and establishing a competitive knowledge-based economy. We look forward to launching more qualitative initiatives in line with the directives of the UAE’s wise leadership to consolidate innovation as a key pillar of the UAE development vision to be among the world’s top developed countries.”

Dr Mohamed Yousef Al Madfaei said: “We are proud to launch the award as part of Abu Dhabi’s leading efforts and innovative contributions in response to global environmental challenges. Together with our partners, we are advancing the UAE’s environmental and innovation agenda in line with national directives towards the protection and preservation of our natural environment.”

“The inaugural TIP Envirotech’s focus on clean energy, ocean conservation and single-use plastics comes at an opportune time as Abu Dhabi hosts the first World Ocean Summit in the Middle East. The initiative will allow the next generation of talent, especially our youth, to transform ideas and concepts into commercially-viable applications that will promote the adoption of sustainable solutions not just in the UAE, but across the world,” he added.

TIP was launched in 2017 in line with Added’s strategic efforts to boost and spread the culture of innovation across industries and facilitate the innovation lifecycle; ensuring that innovative projects turn into economically viable solutions in line with the UAE’s directives aimed at establishing a knowledge-based economy led by national competences capable of tackling the current and future challenges.