Dubai - MENA Herald: The Dubai Future Accelerators program held several Masterclasses and “In Conversation With” events in October, featuring successful high-profile experts, at its headquarters in Jumeirah Emirates Towers Offices. The Dubai Future Accelerators also received visits from top Venture Capital firms from around the world where the teams participating in the program were given an opportunity to pitch directly to the investors.
Deep Nishar, MD of Softbank, Japan; Dave McClure, Founder of 500 startups, USA; Jayesh Parekh of Jungle Ventures, Singapore; Suk Geon SG Chung of Partners NHN Ventures, South Korea; and Kamran Elahian, Co-Founder of Global Catalyst Partners, USA are some of the
world’s most prominent investors who visited the Dubai Future Accelerators last month.
HE Saif Al Aleeli CEO of Future Foundation said: “The events at the program’s headquarters offer the ideal opportunity for anyone interested in exponential technologies and futuristic concepts to learn about them from the leading local and international experts collaborating with us at Dubai Future Accelerators. They serve to get the public involved in the process of building the future today.”
Whereas the investor pitches were exclusively for the program participants, the events organized at the DFA are part of the effort to make the program open to the public and get people involved and aware of the advancements that the program is achieving. To that end, the DFA will be organizing a host of sessions moderated by the local and international experts working closely with the Accelerators program, covering a range of future-focused, technology-related subjects. These events are open to anyone with a vested interest in the technologies of the future at no charge. The program has more events in the pipeline, promising to draw in ever-growing audiences that share the Foundation’s passion for building the future today.
One of the events was an In Conversation With session with Christopher Schoreder. Schoreder, an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and “MENA-phile”, co-founded HealthCentral.com, one of the largest social and content platforms for the health and wellness sector. He also wrote the book “Startup Rising – The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East”, following his travels in Dubai, Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Istanbul, and Damascus. During the Masterclass, Schoreder explored startup culture and its progress in the MENA region, he praised the Dubai Future Accelerators program for providing startups and entrepreneurs with a space that catalyzes their development.
Another event was titled Masterclass: Building Tech Startups in MENA. The event explored ways to establish technology-based startups in the MENA region. The event was headed by Dany Farha, CEO and Managing Partner at BECO Capital, who shared his trials, tribulations, and successes in the 60-minute event. Farha has an impressive track record as an entrepreneur; he co-founded and exited Bayt.com, the Middle East’s largest job site; Butlers, the UAE’s largest commercial laundry company; and Intercat, one of the largest catering companies in the UAE.
Yet another event was Masterclass focused on Blockchain technology - Masterclass: Blockchain 101. The event served to further advance Dubai Future Foundation’s efforts to make Blockchain technology as mainstream as possible, as stipulated in the Dubai Blockchain Strategy launched by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Dubai Future Foundation, with the aim to make all transactions in the emirate paperless by 2020. Speaking at the hour-long event, Gregory Simon and Sean Dennis, Co-Founders of universal loyalty and rewards platform Loyyal – and CEO and Chief Happiness Officer, respectively – explored what Blockchain technology really is, and demonstrated ways to employ it using success stories from around the world. This comes while many estimates put the value of total venture capital in bitcoin and blockchain startups at more than $1.1 billion in 2016.
The Dubai Future Accelerators is an intensive 12-week program that pairs top companies and cutting-edge entrepreneurs with powerful partners in Dubai to create breakthrough solutions together. It explores and develops the technologies of the future and employs them to resolve problems and challenges facing the cities of the 21st century.
