MoHRE launches upgraded version of Smart Innovation Platform

The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) has launched the new and upgraded version of the ‘Smart Innovation Platform’, which includes unique and interactive solutions to govern innovative practices in implementation of MoHRE’s strategy to enhance corporate innovation maturity.

“The new version of the innovation platform was launched to meet the requirements of the UAE government’s future smart transformation and face the various challenges in a way that contributes to achieving the relevant national indicators”, Ayoub Al Marzouqi, Chief Innovation Officer at MoHRE, said.

The MoHRE’s Innovation Council is keen on supporting the electronic and smart infrastructures and the special strategies that push the wheel of innovation forward and on facilitating innovative practices, these being the main driver of progress and future foresight, he added.

Al Marzouqi pointed out that the new platform is based on diverse methods and channels of investment in the ideas of employees, customers, society, partners and others for the development of corporate work, noting that the platform includes a package of unique features such as smart control panels that allow an idea provider to follow up the evaluation journey and cases of his idea.

The features also include innovative evaluation tools where ideas are proactively evaluated based on specific and clear criteria and are carried over to the following stages based on the results. Other features include an interactive platform that allows employees to participate by recording likes and comments with a view to improving the ideas submitted that have been qualified for the initial approval stage.

The platform also contains interactive tools to stimulate innovative thinking including electronic games to escape the ordinary, unconventional stimulation for innovative thinking and a notification system, where the owner of the idea is notified by text messages and e-mail about the result of classification of the presented idea.

Governance is another feature of the Smart Innovation Platform as the system is managed under the supervision of the Innovation Council and fully controls the evaluation criteria, evaluators, system performance and electronic certificates, where thank you and appreciation certificates are issued automatically in the system to the owners of ideas that have been finally approved.

Under the Smart Innovation Platform, the categories that will be honored are determined. These include the category of idea evaluators and co-ordinators, where the best evaluator of the year, the evaluator with the most evaluations, the best innovation co-ordinator in the sectors will be honored. Another category is that of ideas, which includes the award for the best 10 innovative ideas, award for the best 3 applied ideas and award for the best idea presenter in each sector. Finally, there is the category of sectors, which contains the award for best sector in dealing with ideas, award for best sector in number of presented ideas and award for best sector in number of applied ideas. Fourthly, there are the categories of the public, partners and suppliers, which include the best presented idea and the best applied idea.

The platform has specified the stage of presenting an innovative idea, which incorporates several steps where the person interested in submitting an innovative idea to the MoHRE, logs in the Smart Innovation Platform, as a platform user by filling in the required data. This is followed by proactive evaluation of the idea by the idea owner to verify that all innovative idea criteria are fulfilled. Later, the idea is presented, whether the idea owner is one of the MoHRE’s employees, customers or strategic partners.

The platform has also laid down the steps for the idea classification stage, which begin with the stage where the idea reaches the idea incubator under the management of the Innovation Council. A preliminary classification of the idea is made to verify its conformity with the innovative idea criteria, while ideas that do not agree with those criteria are excluded. Based on the average result of the evaluation, the idea is classified as eligible or non-eligible.

If qualified, the idea is published through the idea incubator for the MoHRE’s employees to share the idea, interact with it and improve it. Subsequently, the jury panel, under the supervision of the Innovation Council, sets the strategic goals and priorities associated with the presented idea and initially approves the idea if all criteria are met. The jury panel then specifies the necessary specialized areas to finally evaluate the idea and the concerned departments in these areas. Based on the required specialized fields, the idea is referred to specialist evaluators.

The idea is evaluated by the concerned departments according to clear criteria related to the operating cost, how far it addresses the challenges and how far the application enablers and scientific evidence of the viability and success of the idea are available. Based on the evaluation result, ideas are classified as approved or rejected.

This also includes developing a smart reporting system, where reports are automatically shared in the system by organizational units and sectors.