PwC Luxembourg partner Laurent Probst to speak at knowledge summit

PwC Luxembourg partner Laurent Probst is due to appear among a range of international speakers at next week’s Knowledge Summit in Dubai.

To be held at the Dubai World Trade Centre over the 5th and 6th of December, the 2018 Knowledge Summit is the flagship annual event hosted by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation. Now into its fifth year, the Knowledge Summit has since its inception welcomed more than 300 local and international guest speakers and in excess of 5,000 attendees, covering themes such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2017) and the Way to Innovation (2015).

The theme of this year’s event is ‘Youth and the Future of the Knowledge Economy’, which corresponds with the United Arab Emirates’ Vision 2021 agenda – a roadmap for diversifying the economy away from a reliance on oil receipts and toward a modern knowledge economy. Among the initiatives of the Vision 2021 agenda are policies for ‘Emiratisation’, which aims to grow future employment and skills capacity for young Emirati nationals.

“The youth are the fuel of the future and the cornerstone in sustainable development efforts in any community,” said Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation CEO Jamal Bin Huwaireb, who serves as a cultural advisor to the government of Dubai. “Hosting the event here in the UAE underlines the country’s status as a hub for constructive cultural dialogue, which spurs visions and plans for robust knowledge-based societies.”

This year’s two-day Knowledge Summit will feature more than 100 private and public sector experts speaking across 45 panel discussions and workshops, including appearances from celebrated local science advocate HRH Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan of Jordan, the UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States Mourad Wahba, and high-flying Deloitte Digital Independent Vice Chairman Jay Samit. .

Joining the luminaries will be PwC Luxembourg partner Laurent Probst, who serves as the firm’s Global Network Leader for its regional innovation cluster and was instrumental in developing and leading PwC’s Accelerator programme which was launched in 2012. Since then, over 500 European tech companies having been accelerated to Asia from Europe under the programme, which supports high-potential next-generation companies with their global growth ambitions.

A near two-decade veteran with PwC’s Luxembourg branch, Probst also serves as Economic Development & Innovation leader, specialising for the past seven years in economic development strategy and implementation for governments and EU institutions – particularly as to digital innovation and transformations and the formulation of EU policy initiatives in the politically complex fields of big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced cybersecurity.

Probst will share his opinions and expertise on the ‘Future of Knowledge Model’ topic on the first day of the event, alongside current EU innovation strategic advisor Jan Sturesson, and Leif Edvinsson, a fellow UNDP advisor and pioneering contributor to the theory and practice of Intellectual Capital. The session will cover areas such as the framework of the future knowledge model, factors influencing future knowledge, and the impact of big data on future knowledge among other issues.

Recently, the Luxembourg branch of PwC, which is the country’s largest professional services firm with a headcount of around 2,850 accountants, auditors and consultants, admitted eight new members to its partnership ranks – while earlier this year the firm launched its innovation ‘Experience Centre’ in the country, designed to support clients through an integrated blend of strategy, experience, design and technological know-how.