M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, has held the M12 Innovation Summit: Leveraging Data and AI, at Dubai Future Foundation’s AREA 2071 in demonstration of the company’s steadfast commitment to supporting entrepreneurship and economic growth in the UAE.
The summit takes place over two days to gather customers and decision-makers from across the region and connect them with global startups that are poised to bring the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to the UAE and beyond. This is part of the M12’s value added services to its portfolio companies – showcasing their innovation to the largest enterprises in the world.
Khalfan Belhoul, CEO, Dubai Future Foundation, said, “Strategic partnerships and collaborations with leading global companies such as Microsoft is a testament to the Foundation’s efforts in attracting global talents and practices that creates an environment which encourages and welcomes innovation and creative thinkers to further position Dubai as a hub for innovation and a testbed for emerging technologies”
“We are excited to hold the M12 Innovation Summit here in the UAE.” said Sayed Hashish, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf. “Microsoft has long been a key player in promoting startup and SME success and growth in the region, and in helping businesses innovate by attracting global talent to the UAE. Our aspiration is to connect our leading global customers with some of the brightest stars in our global startup ecosystem. Their track-record of working with some of the world’s biggest brands, as well as local and national government entities, speaks for itself. These innovators come to you with the raw power of the intelligent Microsoft Cloud behind them – the power to engage citizens and customers, empower public servants and employees, optimise operations and reinvent products, services and business models.”
AREA 2071, a purpose-built ecosystem to design and co-create the future by deeply connecting corporates, governments, startups, investors, the youth and the public. As such, attracting unique talents from around the world to solve for that goal is high on AREA 2071’s agenda. Through facilitating access to global talent to its leading government and corporate X- labs, such as M12’s portfolio companies, AREA 2071 is fulfilling one of its goals to be a global hub for the biggest experiments and the brightest talents.
At the summit, M12 was accompanied by handpicked startups in which it has invested, or that have participated in Microsoft ScaleUp; which is a program designed for Series A startups and offers access to sales, marketing and technical support. These included agolo, AIRMAP, Consensys, Contrast Security, docswallet, KrypC, Talview, Witty Parrot and InCorta. These companies have delivered digital transformation to entities around the world, offering solutions that include content summary and analysis for multimedia content; aerial-drone management; blockchain architectures; AI-based cyber-security; digital wallets; analytics solutions for complex business data; cloud-based knowledge platforms; and real-time psychometric testing for HR departments via video interviews.
The summit also brought together Microsoft’s enterprise and government customers from across the region to meet with these innovative startups. M12 facilitated a series of one-to-one meetings between customers and startups, augmented by discussions with some of Microsoft’s startup thought leaders.[:]