I just visited Automechanika today and in Automechanika Academy - Innovation Zone I happen to watch brilliant discussion from James Piecowye and Vitali Bielski. James is a professor at Zayed University and in the night run the "Nightline" - Car tech talk and Car Clinic at Dubai Eye radio station. Vitalli is a senior consultant at Frost & Sullivan from automotive practice.
Their point of discussion was really eye-opening that we all are witnessing the Electric, Solar, Hydrogen and Hybrid automotive technology growing all around us, but are we actually "ready for it".....? From consumer to the service provider and parts manufacturing companies? They shared some awesome slides of some deep research showing some shocking data of how "not ready" we are and we all claim to accept the innovation....!
In the end, this research concluded by a panel discussion of 4 senior people from different levels of the automotive industry. All of them kind of agreeing to the fact that embracing of new technology is not enough and we all need to work together for offering a complete end-to-end solution to the customer who is buying or planning to buy such alternative fuel vehicles.
Glenn Power - Workshop Manager (Background: Mechanic) one of the 4 panelists, actually hit the nail on the head by saying that here proper training and education in the automotive industry is very limited. And the majority of workshops here are purely experience based without any certification or technical knowledge. He is probably one in thousand, who said openly that he will refuse to touch Tesla without any proper knowledge and that is something we all need to look into for developing the automotive scene in the UAE.
How do you guys think we can or should aim at this situation, open for thoughts.