Museum of the Future welcomes one million visitors from 163 countries in its first year

The Chairman of the Museum of the Future, Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, announced that the museum has received more than one million visitors from 163 countries around the world during a full year since its official opening in the presence of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai on February 22, 2022, to constitute a distinctive station in the march of Dubai and the UAE to design and create the future.

He said: "We promised that the Museum of the Future will host one million visitors in its first year, and today we celebrate the achievement of this goal and the start of a new year for the museum through which we will continue to design the future with the whole world, and inform its communities of promising opportunities that we can take advantage of to make our world better in the coming years and decades."

Mohammed Al Gergawi stressed that since its inauguration, the Museum of the Future has contributed to a clear shift in the traditional view of museums, and proved the importance of the concept of foreseeing the future and transforming it into an integrated institutional methodology in line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, that imagining the future and focusing on employing its changes and transformations is a pivotal pillar in the success of governments and societies.

He added: "The vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has made the Museum of the Future a global headquarters for the most important designers and experts of the future and the most prominent international future foresight institutions, and humanity has become more convinced that the future can be designed and its changes should not be ignored. With its unique architectural design, the Museum of the Future has become a global symbol of the future and a major address for scientific and knowledge movement in the region and the world.

He pointed out that the Museum of the Future has established Dubai's global leadership as one of the best cities of the future, and has become a successful global model in the ability of future cities to employ technological transformations to serve societies, and provided an important humanitarian message from the UAE to the whole world that the future requires more positive cooperation and joint work for our future generations.

- Notable achievements.

Since its opening, the Museum of the Future has hosted more than 180 global events and numerous local and international conferences and forums in various sectors of technology, entrepreneurship, economy, space, tourism, culture and various sectors of the future, and has received more than 200 media delegations from around the world over the past year.

More than 1000,20 international dignitaries, ministers, officials and experts visited the museum this year, including around <> heads of state, heads of government and official delegations from South Korea, Estonia, Luxembourg, China, Greece, Hong Kong, Thailand, Rwanda, Mauritius and others.

- International awards.

Since its opening, the Museum of the Future has won 10 international awards from international institutions and magazines specialized in the fields of museum content quality, future sciences and engineering design, which the museum won in its first year, in addition to the LEED Platinum Certificate in the field of operational sustainability and the use of advanced technologies.

- International institutions and organizations.

Over the past year, the Museum of the Future has hosted many heads and representatives of international institutions and organizations, including Darren Tang, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Gerd Müller, Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Maimuna Sharif, Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Arturo Preis, Director of the Global Competitiveness Center of the International Institute for Management Development, and Dr. Samira Asma, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization.

- Future Dialogues.

The museum witnessed distinguished global discussions within the Future Dialogues sessions, which hosted some of the world's most prominent visionaries and thought leaders, including Professor Greg Clark, Global President of Future Cities and New Industries at HSBC Group, Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow and Vice President of Microsoft for Artificial Intelligence and Mixed Reality, Professor Osama Al-Khatib, Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Robotics Lab at Stanford University, Sadguru Jagadish Vasudev, yoga instructor and environmental activist, and Wadis Alba, the famous star. Globally, Deepak Chopra is a global speaker specializing in alternative medicine, and many more.

- Global partnerships.

In order to enhance the role of the Museum of the Future as a global headquarters for future foresight institutions from around the world, and to enhance joint cooperation and exchange of experiences in various fields and sectors of future foresight, Dubai Future Foundation signed cooperation agreements with the Association of Future Foreseeers, Millennium Project, the International Federation for Future Studies and the Public Sector Future Foresight Network.

The Dubai Future Forum, hosted by the Museum of the Future under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai Future Foundation, witnessed the participation of more than 400 prominent international figures, government officials, experts and specialists in the field of designing and foreseeing the future from around the world, in addition to more than 45 international organizations and institutions in the largest global gathering of future experts of its kind. The next edition of the Dubai Future Forum will be held on 27 and 28 November 2023.

- Center for Arab geniuses.

The Museum of the Future is a hub for future foresight experts in various sectors regionally and globally, and a comprehensive laboratory for testing and developing future technologies and ideas. During the past year, the Museum has established its keenness and relentless endeavor to invest in the creative mind and embrace ideas, projects, initiatives, research and studies of qualitative and added value for future products in various scientific and knowledge fields, and the Museum of the Future will bring together Arab geniuses, including scientists, thinkers and researchers from the ocean to the Gulf, to mobilize and direct their creative energies and creative perceptions to accelerate Arab scientific development in various fields and create a better future for the peoples of the region.

- Future experiences.

In its first year, the Museum of the Future has provided visitors from around the world with the opportunity to learn about essential experiences that showcase the potential opportunities for humanity by contributing to solving current challenges to build a better world, including a simulation of the launch experience to the orbital space station "Amal", which is designed to simulate humanity's home in space.

These extraordinary journeys took visitors to the museum on a virtual journey to outer space, during which they discovered the various missions and research carried out on board the station, and upon successful completion of the mission, visitors leave space back to Earth to discover an imagined picture of what Dubai and the world will become in 2071 with efforts to restore the health of the natural system and the sustainability of the planet's resources.

- Future technologies.

The museum employs the latest technologies of the future such as virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and human-machine interaction, to launch meaningful dialogues that motivate visitors to draw their own visions about the future.

The 77-metre-high, 30,<>-square-metre museum building is designed to be an architectural and engineering marvel that connects the past to the future, as it is designed in a different way from the concept of traditional museums using the latest innovative technologies.