The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT) and EDGE Group jointly launched Tour 4.0, a new initiative designed to accelerate digital transformation and promote advanced technology adoption in the UAE’s industrial ecosystem.

MoIAT and EDGE also launched the latest training in the Leadership 4.0 series, which aims to empower industrial leaders to adopt 4IR solutions and sustainability best practices across the UAE’s industrial sector.

Both the Leadership 4.0 and Tour 4.0 initiatives fall under the UAE's Technology Transformation Program (TTP), launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai in 2022.

The initiatives also support the UAE Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative, which emphasizes technology’s key role in industrial decarbonization.

Tour 4.0 and Leadership 4.0 follow on from CEO 4.0, Pioneers 4.0, and Talk 4.0. The initiatives are being executed as part of a collaboration between MoIAT and EDGE within the Industry 4.0 Enablement Centre.

The mandate of the Enablement Centre is to enable the improvement of industrial capabilities in the UAE with initiatives falling under 4 areas: learning, demonstration, implementation, and innovation, and it aims at promoting, enabling, and supporting the digital transformation and adoption of Industry 4.0 solutions across the country’s manufacturing sectors.

Tour 4.0 provides tours to cutting-edge, smart factories to increase awareness and to share knowledge and best practices on adopting advanced technologies.

Fifteen leaders from UAE-based manufacturing enterprises as well as representatives from MoIAT and EDGE joined the launch tour at Ittihad Paper Mill (IPM) in Abu Dhabi, the region’s largest paper manufacturer.

Fifteen leaders from UAE-based manufacturing enterprises as well as representatives from MoIAT and EDGE joined the tour at Ittihad Paper Mill, which operates one of the country’s most technologically advanced manufacturing plants.

Participants learned about the company’s digital transformation journey and its latest achievements. The tour also highlighted the factory’s sustainability practices, such as wastewater treatment and carbon capture and utilization to produce calcium carbonate to be re-used during production.

Tariq Al Hashmi, Director of Technology Adoption and Development at the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, said: “Technological transformation is one of the key pillars of the National Strategy for Industry and Advanced Technology.

"The ministry collaborates with strategic partners from both the public and private sectors to raise awareness of the skills and mechanisms required for this transformation in the national industrial sector and enable solutions that support it."

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