The King today visited Heriot-Watt University Dubai’s campus in Dubai Knowledge Park. He was joined by Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf. The King also heard outcomes from a roundtable on climate action through partnership and met with the academic leaders and students from commonwealth universities.
Youth engagement is a key theme of the Climate Hub, and several students are participating as volunteers, and actively assisting cleantech exhibitors. The King, accompanied by Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron, visited Heriot-Watt Climate Hub and met with several British companies who were part of the Cleantech exhibition and displaying innovative solutions to the threat posed by the climate crisis. Set up at the Dubai campus to run alongside COP28 which is being hosted by the UAE, the Climate Hub embodies Heriot-Watt’s ambition to take a distinctive lead in defining the route to global sustainability.
The university is utilising its convening power in collaboration with event partners to host a schedule of daily events that will mirror and complement the themes of COP28. The Cleantech exhibition at Heriot-Watt Climate Hub is partly funded by the UK government and will give exhibiting companies a chance to meet policymakers, potential investors, and industry leaders who are visiting the UAE for COP28. Exhibits include the world’s first self-assembled, flat-packed solar thermal collector from Heriot-Watt spinout company, SolarisKit.
The system reduces carbon emissions by converting solar energy into affordable hot water. Other exhibits include Smartrawl, a robotic underwater sorting device that uses artificial intelligence to help fishing trawlers avoid wasteful fish discards and bycatch. A separate Research Showcase at the Climate Hub displays selected outputs from Heriot-Watt’s Global Research Institutes (GRIs) and looks at their impact.
The GRIs are centres of excellence and collaboration, created to address global challenges by leveraging our global reach, our significant international collaborations and our long-standing connectivity to business and industry. Finally, a Future Skills Showcase at the Climate Hub will include initiatives that Heriot-Watt is leading to shape the graduates of the future. These include a carbon literacy training programme to enable participants to make more sustainable decisions, and the Empower programme, which teaches purpose-driven leadership.
Heriot-Watt University Dubai is transforming the 5th and 6th floors of its campus in Dubai Knowledge Park into Climate Hub for the duration of COP28, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The initiative will showcase the Scottish University’s deep expertise in sustainability research, with specialisms in areas including industrial decarbonisation, energy transition, sustainable logistics, sustainable building design and plastics in the environment. Heriot-Watt’s Dubai campus is 20 minutes away from Expo City Dubai, which will host the main COP28 programme from 30 November 2023 to 12 December 2023.
Journalists attending COP28 are being invited to base themselves at the Climate Hub, which is hosting a programme of events and media facilities including a recording studio. .
From: uaenews247
URL: https://uaenews247.com/2023/11/30/king-charles-iii-visits-heriot-watt-university-dubai/
