Welcome on board, the future’s here

If there was one thing that the pandemic taught us, it was to live in the present. But sometimes, our present is a gift from our predecessors.

We reap what they have sown. Which is why future is not always a time long, long away. Sometimes, it is right ahead of us.

Firming its present, Dubai has always had its gaze fixed on the future. As a matter of fact, future — imagining and reimagining it — is almost a discipline unto itself, with a number of institutions set up to look at the direction the emirate should be taking economically and infrastructurally in a couple of years.

The Museum of the Future, which opens to public today, is possibly the most ambitious step in this endeavour.

Museum is an interesting word to choose for something that looks ahead rather than looking back.

Museums are spaces that safeguard our past, neatly stack them so that generations can understand their social and cultural heritage better. Sure, we understand ourselves better when we understand our past. But in peeking into the future, we get a better sense of what the ‘now’ must comprise.

The Museum of the Future, in that sense, is a unique initiative; it is a laboratory of ideas that can shape our future but for which we must take the leap now, in the process inspiring us to embrace change instead of being sceptical about it.

The architecture itself reflects the institutional ethos. The oval-shaped structure symbolises humanity, with the mound representing earth and the space in between representing limitless possibilities that the future holds for us.

The architecture itself reflects the institutional ethos. The oval-shaped structure symbolises humanity, with the mound representing earth and the space in between representing limitless possibilities that the future holds for us.

While reams have already been written about every inch of the structure, the most important writing is on the structure itself, which immortalises the words of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai: “We might not live for hundreds of years, but our creativity will leave a legacy long after we are gone”, “The future belongs to those who can imagine it, design it and execute it”, “The future does not wait. It can be designed and built today.”

Words that reflect precisely what the museum will set out to do — be an incubator for ideas that build our future.

Starting today, you can hope to immerse yourself in outer space, or have a galactic adventure, all thanks to the latest VR and AR technologies.

From a giant elevator taking you through a journey into the future of societies, human beings and life on the earth to coming face to face with tangible technology, the Museum of the Future is your ticket to a world of possibilities. Immerse yourself in it!

• UAE