The Robotic Olympics Are Coming To Dubai

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Not content with snatching up the World Cup, Dubai has now unveiled plans to hold a different kind of competition: the World Future Sports Games, or a robotic olympics of sorts. Following the World Drone Prix that the gulf nation hosted this month, where  15-year-old Briton Luke Bannister won the $250,000 first prize, Dubai now plans to hold a much larger, bi-annual event starting in 2017.

The Games will feature nine competitions, according to the announcement: “driverless car racing, robotic soccer, robotic running competitions, manned drones racing, robotic swimming, robotic table tennis, robotic wrestling, drones races and cybathlon competition” – an event for bionic athletes. The Dubai Museum of the Future Foundation (DMFF), who is behind the initiative, hopes that if the Games prove successful they will help drive innovation, increase interest in the technologies, and foster economic growth.

To run the Games, Dubai is setting up a World Federation of Future Sports, and it aims to work with “specialized international federations” to set standards and form a global coalition supporting the so-called Future Sports Sector.

“Today we start a new phase in our march to the future through the launch of these unique initiatives that are built on the success of our global platforms, the UAE Drones for Good Award and UAE AI & Robotics Award for Good. Over the last two years, these platforms have attracted thousands of entries and hundreds of teams from around the world to strengthen the position of the UAE in the field of innovation at the global level,” said Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of DMFF Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.