Doha, October 30 (QNA) – The Ministry of Municipality has launched the “Innovation opportunity” in partnership with Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council (QRDI) in pursuit of addressing the key agricultural challenges, whether locally, regionally or internationally within the framework of Qatar Open Innovation (QOI) program.
By launching this opportunity via QOI, the ministry seeks to explore an appropriate innovative technology which is adaptable to operate in the climate conditions of the State of Qatar to further address the challenges facing the early detection of Red palm weevil (RPW) in all regions across the state, to ensure that such technologies fulfil the full height of the palm tree, which can reach roughly 20 meters, provided that the innovative technology shall cost-effectively offer low cost to screen every palm tree along with the possibility of remotely applying this technology.
The cooperation between the Ministry of Municipality and QRDI aims to explore innovative solutions to detect the RPW in its early stage of life cycle prior to reaching advanced stage to have an ample opportunity for controlling RPW and avoid damage to the palm trees, because the State of Qatar embraces over a million palm trees in the public and private farms, including roughly 13,000 palm trees in the public farms.
In this context, Director of Planning and Quality Department at the Ministry of Municipality Eng. Suleiman Saeed Abdullah underlined that the current innovation opportunity offered by the ministry in partnership with QOI, an affiliate of QRDI, is one of the numerous opportunities that will be laid out in the future to counter the challenges facing the ministry, hoping that the ministry will obtain the best and state-of-the-art technologies to control RPW with the objective of conserving the palm trees which are considered national slogan and symbol for the State of Qatar, and the council will be the entity vested with the power to grant the innovators the opportunity to test their innovations to be further launched in the regional and global markets.
QRDI has launched QOI early this year with the objective of inviting the local and global innovators to present the technological innovations that evidently fulfil the needs of the major local enterprises and government entities in the State of Qatar, which is the first -of-its-kind program that intends to support innovation and expand the developing innovation system in the country.
(QNA)