UAE can be the Silicon Valley of this region

Regarding the story Abu Dhabi is to host 'hackathon' competition (August 24), the UAE should be the Silicon Valley of the Middle East, developing and exporting software.

As the country continues to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons and towards a knowledge economy, its initiatives such as the “hackathon” will encourage such a transition. Furthermore, encouraging entrepreneurs is crucial to building SMEs and ensuring sustainable employment. However, it takes funding to commercialise good ideas and I hope that “incubator or micro funding” will be available.

Many Fortune 500 businesses in the US, for example, were built out of the SME model. KFC and Facebook are two of the examples. The founders of the companies turned great ideas into viable, sustainable businesses that now employ thousands of people.

The gaming industry and their programmers are now worth billions of dollars and within 10 years gamers will be the new superstars earning three times more money than the highest-paid professional sportsmen.

What’s certain is that the future will be built on computer applications, where information technology will merge with biology, where IT will transform legacy systems into super systems – driverless cars and networks capable of processing terabits in seconds. Why fly a manned aircraft into the eye of a hurricane when it’s possible to send a drone capable of processing and transmitting data in real time back to us?

Randall Mohammed, Dubai

What’s so ‘open’ about Thailand?

Thailand is not an open society as it was called in the headline Bangkok blast is a brazen attack on an open society (August 20). The military junta put paid to Thailand's fledgling democracy. It's strange that the slogan says "we are all Thais" when most of the country is looked down upon by the elite.

Thailand has once again shown the world that its police force imitates the Keystone Kops in their investigations of almost all crimes. This leads to a plethora of rumours and hatred among the opponents.

Name withheld by request

Keep your eyes open on beach

With reference to the article Police warn beach cameramen (August 25), people can keep an eye on men trying to click pictures of women on the beach, but how to prevent people from taking pictures from balconies of hotels or buildings around the Dubai Marina area? I think it's impossible to get rid of this problem completely.

A. Yuks, Dubai

I applaud the patience of Mary-Grape de Castro, who just asked the men who took her pictures to delete them from their camera. If I caught some person taking a picture of me, he would be walking away with a broken device and a black eye.

April Tarman, Dubai

Filipinos have reasons to worry

The concerns of Filipino expatriates about sending out boxes to their loved ones back home are valid and logical (Inspection plan draws concern of Filipinos, August 24).

For the authorities to open and inspect these boxes is wrong in a lot of ways and clearly an invasion of privacy. This law needs to be revised.

Fatima Suhail, Sharjah

Unesco could have done more

The report about ISIL vandalising the heritage site in Syria's Palmyra was shocking (ISIL militants blow up ancient Syrian temple in Palmyra, August 25).

It is highly disappointing that Unesco failed to safeguard this site. The agency could have tried to slowly move some of the treasures to a safer location when the situation started to deteriorate in Syria.

It’s not just Palmyra that has suffered extensive damage during the conflict. There are many such places across in Iraq and Syria that have been similarly affected.

Ramachandran Nair, Oman

• Remittance charges will be tackled by blockchain

• UAE's monumental and risky Mars Mission to inspire future generations, says minister

• Could the UAE drive India's economy?

• News has a bright future and the UAE is at the heart of it

• Architecture is over - here's cybertecture

• The National announces Future of News journalism competition

• Round up: Experts share their visions of the world to come