UAE celebrates 50 years service of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, recently announced his next book - 50 stories of 50 years (of serving the UAE). In a post shared on Twitter he mentioned the title of his new memoir. "50 stories in 50 years. Incomplete resume. My new book, My Story”.

From negotiating with hijackers to surviving in the desert, the stories reveal his exposure to incidents that left an everlasting impression in his mind, the one that shaped the vision for Dubai. This also created some of the world’s most famous landmarks and development work in Dubai that made the world turn on its axis and look at Middle East in a different light altogether.

Highlights of development work that made Dubai the cynosure of Middle East

• Under the direction of His Highness, the Burj Al Arab hotel was opened in 1999, an iconic symbol of the city’s growing international profile. Two years later, he inaugurated construction of the Palm Jumeirah, another project that would capture the world’s imagination and define the new Dubai.
• Always ahead of his times, he launched the e-Government project in 1995 at a time when most people were barely aware of the internet. By 1999, he issued a deadline of 18 months to make Dubai Government services fully online and ordered the creation of Dubai Internet City, recognizing the growing importance of the worldwide digital economy.
• In late 2008, it was an expression of faith that overcame the challenges of the global financial downturn and saw the construction of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building and in the first four years of his rule, the Dubai Mall, and later, the opening of the Dubai Metro in 2009.
• His passion to make Dubai the Arab world’s first Smart City is embodied in futuristic projects like flying taxis and the ambition to make a quarter of all journeys in the city autonomous by 2030. In 2015, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed unveiled Vision 2021, with national priorities that include world class health and education, and a knowledge based economy tangible in the forthcoming Mission to Mars and Expo 2020.

For millions in the UAE and worldwide, he is a visible and approachable symbol of the success of the UAE. He was quick to embrace social media, his Twitter account now accruing over nine million followers.

As he wrote in his earlier book, Flashes of Thought: “A true leader does not derive power from his position, but from his ethics, from people’s love for him, and from his knowledge, education and excellence in his field of work.”

With a vision so strong, Dubai is all set to become a city of the future. Tourism and real estate will thrive and dependency on an oil-based economy is set to fade away over time.