Keynote Remarks (Martina Strong)

[Music] um but I do want to at the outset uh say a heartfelt thank you to the Atlantic Council because uh they have been tremendous Partners not just to our mission here in the UAE but uh really across the board around the world and uh they have been partners on some truly pivotal initiatives such as this one and I'll say a few words about that later but uh your excellencies ladies and gentlemen we do have a number of gentlemen in the audience which uh certainly is very critical when we're discussing this issue so I will say that I am um not just honored but uh thrilled to be joining you this afternoon uh to recognize and empower the next generation of women Trailblazers and you will get to hear a little bit about them later on but I think it's really fitting uh to do so here at the Abu Dhabi Finance week uh because uh this week of course we focused on what is driving the global economy what are some of the key trends that our policy makers should be thinking about but for me and for our mission uh it is also a week that caps a truly historic and momentous year in US UAE relations and uh over the past year our two countries have worked to strengthen our strategic partnership and really oriented towards success in the decades to come and uh I think all of you noticed that uh one of the core themes of the finance week this year was on the very rapidly evolving geopolitical and geoeconomic context in which we all operate and in which we all cooperate but also in which we all compete and success in this very Dynamic environment requires Partnerships and this is something that the United States is very much committed to and these Partnerships of course help countries navigate the complexities uh of this uh geopolitical and geoeconomic very fluid environment but also to help us mobilize our shared resources and Orient us towards the key opportunities but also challenges ahead and I would say uh the US UAE partnership is very much uh the perfect example of uh such a partnership that is required at this pivotal moment I think all of you uh know that in September we had the great pleasure and honor to Welcome to the United States His Highness shikh Muhammad and uh he had uh he was the first sitting UAE president to visit uh the White House and uh in his meeting with President Biden the two really uh came to a what I would say almost 100% alignment on some of the key opportunities ahead of us and the two leaders when they sat down together charted a very ambitious path for our bilateral partnership and in their joint statement I will just uh share with you a brief quote uh they said the United States and the United Arab Emirates are both entrepreneurial Nations joined together by a Relentless focus on the future our aspirations are rooted in a common resolve to pursue Innovative Partnerships in new Fields including AI food security infrastructure investment and supply chain resilience so together we our two countries are working together we're innovating and we're building the sectors that will be driving the 21st century economy and and as you just heard that includes Ai and Frontier technology of every sort space economy cyber security health and life sciences and of course sustainable reliable clean sources of energy to power all of these different sectors and efforts what is also required and this is something that has been a priority is ensuring that our two countries have a skilled well prepared Workforce to participate and Achieve success in this 21st century economy and therefore our bilateral priorities have very much included training education and women's empowerment and here is where I get to our cooperation with the Atlantic Council uh it has been absolutely uh one of our core priorities to empower women in finance and Entrepreneurship because that type of effort has demonstrated time and again that uh we can help unlock new opportunities create thriving businesses and as aelia mentioned create prosperity in our economies and societies we recognize that women's economic empowerment is not just nice to do it's not something that we should just talk about in conferences it is very much something that we must do and this is why we are supporting the Atlantic council's women innovator or win fellowships and this is in collaboration with georgetown's magana business school and uh I will tell you and I think I mentioned to some of you as I was walking in this is an initiative and a program that is very much near and dear to my heart uh because I was privileged to uh help launch this program in Saudi Arabia some three years ago and uh it was even better to watch it grow and succeed and has now expanded to not just UAE but also Bahrain and Jordan and it's programs such as wi that provide women entrepreneurs with the training the skills the capacity building uh digital and financial tools mentorship and uh resources in general that uh helped them um access uh you know stores of knowledge that they would otherwise not uh be able to reach and uh this is uh something again that uh we have found to be true time and again through programs such as when and since 2020 the state department has also supported a program called Academy for for women entrepreneurs or awe and this is again a program that has been incredibly successful here in the UAE and we are very proud of this collaboration with NYU Abu Dhabi and uh West Start ad and we showcase these programs and others at a recent Summit this took place in September we brought together women entrepreneurs and alumna from 14 different countries across region and Central Asia and we took them to Abu Dhabi sha and Dubai uh but more importantly we exposed them to all of the tools and resources and knowledge uh that we could share with them in uh the three days that they were with us and um most importantly I would say and this is something that we heard from all of the participants or most uh important to them uh were their ability to engage with uh prior alumni and alumni of our programs uh these were women that had graduated but really made the Journey of uh entrepreneurs toward success and they were so generous with their time and with their knowledge and really shared uh with our participants in this Summit everything that they could uh to help encourage them and help help support them in these initial stages of their efforts and uh I just want to highlight a few of these women that have as I said made the journey and achieved success because they are really terrific we had uh with us win alumna Lara Hussein from Wast lab this is somebody who is an innovator and Visionary and uh her technology was profiled at cop 28 in Dubai last year we had with us also a alumna Marcela Sancho the founder of House of pops and those of you who have not had her popsicles you should go out and get some because they're delicious and they are taking over the Middle East as Bloomberg recently wrote we also had with us our youngest Wing win alumna alabi almey some of you may have seen her profiled recently in media uh this young lady is just tremendous she's a Guinness World Book record holder and a youngest Emira publisher another success story was from our inj training program it was an all female grade 12 student company called Limitless and they are working uh with AI based applications to help students with special needs and finally uh we had a alumna hadil Alti uh found of broth lab I think she's joining us today is she here no okay too bad because she's a really tremendous advocate for women entrepreneurs and Incredibly successful again somebody who started small but now is expanding not just to other countries in your region but also to the United States so these are a few of the women Trailblazers that uh we helped as I said in those initial stages they're Visionaries and we were so proud to work with them they are really just absolutely magnificent and we're looking to do much more with all of you we're looking always for great ideas so that we can expand the reach of our programs uh create new programs so please uh do stay in touch with us let us know how it's going in February for example we will be sponsoring uh during uae's Innovation month we will be sponsoring the first ever us Pavilion and at the Chara entrepreneurship Festival we're really looking forward to that again just to engage with more uh sort of budding tycoons and uh entrepreneurs and helping them along the way so thank you very much for uh participating today and thank you for all that you are doing to help women entrepreneurs help women businesses and help the US UAE partnership which is built as always not by diplomats like me but by people like you who are working every single day to create the Partnerships relationships and friendships that drive forward this really historic relationship thank you [Applause] [Music]