MBZUAI Incubation and Entrepreneurship Center (MIEC), has introduced an AI-focused Mentors Network that connects international AI veterans and investors with the start-up founders. The network has launched with Professor Steve Liu, Associate VP of Research at MBZUAI, Co-founder of Proactive AI Lab; Professor Elizabeth Churchill, Department Chair of Human-Computer Interaction at MBZUAI; Dr. Hao Li, […]
MBZUAI Incubation and Entrepreneurship Center (MIEC), has introduced an AI-focused Mentors Network that connects international AI veterans and investors with the start-up founders.
The network has launched with Professor Steve Liu, Associate VP of Research at MBZUAI, Co-founder of Proactive AI Lab; Professor Elizabeth Churchill, Department Chair of Human-Computer Interaction at MBZUAI; Dr. Hao Li, Associate Professor at MBZUAI, Founder and CEO of Pinscreen; Abdulaziz Shikh Al Sagha, General Partner at BECO Capital; Franklin Urteaga, Former White House Tech Adviser, Co-Founder and CEO of Oigetit.ai; Julien Pageaud, Managing Partner at Sparkle Ventures; Mohamad Charafidden, VP of Data & AI at Careem; Yousef Barkawie, Partner and AI & Data Analytics lead for Middle East at Deloitte.
MBZUAI has a strong culture of entrepreneurship that runs throughout its faculty, including but not limited to Department Chair and Professor of Robotics Yoshihiko Nakamura, who is founder and CEO of Kinescopic Inc.; Professor of Computer Vision, Ivan Laptev, co-founder of VisionLabs; Associate Professor of Computer Vision and Director of MBZUAI Metaverse Center, Hao Li, founder of Pinscreen; and Assistant Professor of Natural Language Processing, Ekaterina Kochmar, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Korbit AI.
The AI business landscape is on the ascendancy as figures recently released by Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed a year-on-year growth of 41.3% of new AI companies in H1 2024, bringing the total of AI companies in the emirate to more than 400. This growth signals the increasing maturity of Abu Dhabi’s AI ecosystem, while highlighting the importance of specialised support in deep tech validation and talent development.
Elaborating on MIEC’s mission, Sultan Al Hajji, Vice President for Public Affairs and Alumni Relations at MBZUAI, said: MIEC was established as part of MBZUAI’s core mission to emphasise innovation in AI and its role in addressing real-world challenges. MIEC empowers founders with funding and expertise and has successfully co-created with aspiring tech founders to transform coding to businesses.
Alongside mentorship, MIEC also introduced its IEC Grant initiative, designed to empower founders from the University with important funding, and Entrepreneurship Workshops, which aim to foster practitioner-oriented learning. To date, the workshops have received 200 applications from students and researchers, with 100 participants graduating, and 17 start-ups delivering pitches. More than 80 hours of workshops and mentorship have taken place to date, with experts from within the University joined by external guests from OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, and elsewhere to provide founders with personalised training.
These workshops are vital in an academic setting, where most students lack real-world business experience, says Al Hajj. By embedding entrepreneurial training into their academic journey, MIEC ensures students graduate with both technical expertise and a business mindset, making them highly sought-after in the job market or as future founders.
MIEC is supplementing this learning and business knowledge with a bi-weekly newsletter, Insights Minute. It also hosts a Palmside AI Chat series that bring global insights to enrich the local ecosystem through leaders from tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Careem, and OpenAI. More than 300 participants have joined these sessions to date, creating a vital bridge between international AI expertise and Abu Dhabi’s growing tech community.
Working within a wider ecosystem, MIEC has been proactive about fostering partnerships across Abu Dhabi and beyond in a bid to expand its network and potential. The centres partners and collaborators include startAD, Hub71, Sandooq Al Qatan, Microsoft Founders Hub, Shorooq Partners, BECO Capital, Nvidia, e& Capital, and others.
Building on its partner network, MIEC runs two external programmes. The first is the AI Venturepad Program that cultivates local AI talent and solutions to address local challenges by providing comprehensive support to participants, including mentorship, global product-building perks, and exposure. The second programme, Trailblazers, helps to identify and empower promising young Emirati AI talents who will enrich the UAE’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and drive broader adoption of AI across strategic sectors.
In its first year, through its partnership with the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), MIEC developed a chatbot to assist Abu Dhabi SMEs. After hosting a competition across Abu Dhabi universities, which saw more than 1,000 students apply to help develop the solution, the SME AI Chatbot is almost ready to launch. More than 200 users have already signed up to the waitlist.
