The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined global connectivity, upending travel and international trade. But how are societies across the planet engaging and building upon new approaches to mobility in a world forever changed during one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history?
As one of its three key subthemes, Expo 2020 Dubai considers ‘Mobility’ an essential area in building a better world, creating the more efficient and effective movement of people, goods and ideas, both physically and virtually.
Nowhere is this more evident than the eye-grabbing visitor experience at Expo’s Alif – The Mobility Pavilion, one of three Thematic Pavilions across the site, that takes guests on a voyage through time and space to discover how people, goods, ideas and data are interacting in an ever more complex fashion.
Bringing the story of global mobility to life in immersive and inspiring ways, the experience showcases the pivotal role the UAE and the entire Arab world has played, and continues to play, in advancing human progress, in a journey that encompasses everything from ancient exploration to the Emirates Mission to Mars, and beyond.
The visitor experience begins 4,500 years ago in Saruq Al Hadid, a settlement in the Dubai desert that had extensive relations with areas of the Gulf, the Levant and West Asia, demonstrating the enduring strategic importance of this region. Vistiors delve into the Golden Age of Arab Civilistion, learning about the region’s influence on today’s technologies, as the intricately designed, nine-metre tall figures of Arab innovators, including ancient navigator Ibn Majid and celebrated explorer Ibn Battuta, tower over them with accompanying tales of their discoveries.
The journey then leaps forward in time to the 21st century – entering a virtual world brimming with data, and moving into the city of the future, with a glimpse of where mobility may be headed next.
Digitalisation and connectivity, both physical and digital, serve as the backbone of the World Expo’s Travel and Connectivity Week, hosting leading industry figures, innovators and policymakers from around the world. One of 10 ongoing Theme Weeks under Expo’s Programme for People and Planet, Travel and Connectivity Week – running from 9-16 January – comes almost two years after the pandemic began to upend global travel, universally transforming our approach to connectivity.
Underpinned by the belief that connectivity not only brings us all closer together but is the bedrock of healthy and empowered societies, the Week’s programming will target key issues for global policymakers, heads of business and agents of change alike.
With the role of digital connectivity in our lives growing over recent years, never before has the gap between those who are connected and those who are not, been so dramatically felt. And by exploring the technological tools and approaches that are shaping the future of physical and digital connectivity throughout its 182-day run, Expo’s physical offering, including Alif – The Mobility Pavilion, alongside its site-wide programming, is illuminating a new era of mobility – coming at a time no more pertinent than now.
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