Western frameworks for governance and development are stunningly ill-equipped for the world that’s unfolding in front of us—one marked by the rapid dissolution of legacy institutions and the break-neck advent of AI. On this episode, we are joined by two big-horizon thinkers highly knowledgeable in the machinations of the UAE—former chief futurist of Dubai Noah Raford and the writer/critic/thinker Shumon Basar—for an update on the state of the Gulf and its role as rising mega-nexus of a multipolar new world order.
Shumon Basar has been writing about the Gulf for nearly two decades, serving as Commissioner of Art Dubai's Global Art Forum since its inception and co-authoring several publications on the region including With/Without: Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East (Bidoun, 2007) and Cities from Zero (Architectural Assoc., 2011). See also: Shumon’s 2015 Dubai compendium for Bidoun, Shumon Basar's Before and After Taste.
Noah Raford spent 12 years as the top futurist in the UAE government, working as an advisor in the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, and as a founding executive of the Dubai Future Foundation and Dubai’s Museum of the Future. He recently retired from government and is leading an AI startup and a public sector initiative called Visionary50, looking at the next 50 years. He’s also a DJ. See also: Noah’s recent TED Talk, How Gaming Can Be a Force for Good (2022)
Further reading: Karen. E. Young, "How Saudi Arabia Sees the World: MBS's Vision of a New Nonaligned Movement" (Foreign Affairs, Nov. 1, 2022)
