The barriers to a start-up ecosystem

Software developers and engineers want to call the UAE home, but there are challenges

Start-ups are the lifeblood of the modern knowledge economy and software developers are the beating heart of the industry. Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Start-ups are the lifeblood of the modern knowledge economy and software developers are the beating heart of the industry. Savvy and scrappy attempts to change the way we interact with the world through technology define the present and future of the global economy. Some of the world’s most profitable companies began as start-ups or even just long-shot ideas in software development.

Capitalising on our increasingly interconnected world, technology start-ups typically attract the most talented developers and engineers regardless of their nationality. With the world’s largest concentration of foreign workers, what are the barriers for the UAE joining the start-up revolution?

The simple answer to this question is the residency process. While established, the process of acquiring an employment visa is laborious and lacks the type of elasticity needed to handle the needs of the start-up world. Start-ups fail. They fail often. It can take many different attempts and different ideas for one killer application or social media platform to emerge as a critical part of the internet infrastructure. As such, start-ups require the ability to have employees on short-term contracts that privilege flexibility over stability.

Additionally, start-ups rely on people who have proven skills and not necessarily established degrees. Currently, skills and talent are substantiated in the UAE through attested university diplomas and certificates. What happens to a software developer who has designed leading applications but never finished high school? The visa process must be updated to take these changes into account.

Given their rate of failure, the cost of living is another factor for a healthy start-up ecosystem. Developers working on fresh ideas require an affordable cost of living while they are making little money. It also goes without saying that technology start-ups rely on a free and open internet. While security provisions are critical for the safety of the country, software developers need access to a variety of websites. But too often, innocuous sites can be blocked through over-zealousness. There will need to be a way of addressing this .

If we want to create a knowledge economy, we have to reform these structures in a prudent and expeditious manner. Then the sky is the limit for our potential as the next Silicon Valley.