The Arabian Gulf Digital Archive, a collaboration between the National Archives of the both the UAE and UK, has launched online. The archive, featuring 250,000 documents, photos and videos of the Gulf, the AGDA is fully indexed and searchable, including transcripts of scanned documents. The documents include treaties and correspondences of the UK diplomatic missions in the Gulf. They also include documents of the then-newly established oil companies as they negotiated concessions and launched oil exploration missions. The archive currently has three online exhibitions curated by its editors. These are “Development and Culture in the Arabian Gulf,” “Technology and development in the Arabian Gulf” and “Oil exploration and discovery.”

Abu Dhabi will again host the biennial “Reaching the Last Mile Forum” in November. The event is meant to raise money for the last stretch required to fully eradicate polio. In order to achieve its Endgame Strategy, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, needs to raise $4.2 Billion, of which $3.27 Billion will be raised by the GPEI. Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft, thanked His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, for his contribution to the polio eradication efforts.

Two UAE universities are in the top 50 Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings for the first time. Khalifa University rose four spots to the 28th position, while UAE University rose from the 71st place to 49th.