First-ever Dubai Tech Tour held to attract fintech talent from India

In September 2020, 15 promising entrepreneurs from India pitched their innovative fintech and health-tech solutions to the UAE’s investors, corporates, and scale-up peers at the first-ever Dubai Technology Tour. The main purpose of Dubai Startup Hub’s unique initiative was to promote further collaboration between India and the UAE while encouraging fintech and health-tech solutions that support the UAE’s transition to a knowledge-based economy and other innovation strategies.

The virtual technology tour, organized in partnership with Startup India and Mumbai Fintech Hub, gave attention to the Indian startups’ high potentials. It also brought awareness to the Emirate’s business-friendly atmosphere and the advantages it offered to those working on advanced technologies. Although mainly healthcare and fintech-focused, Dubai has recently been trying to attract more Indian companies from the agricultural, education, artificial intelligence (AI), and manufacturing sectors. Thus, the Dubai Startup Hub has been relentlessly working on projecting and positioning itself as the preferred hub for entrepreneurs from India. Last year, the Dubai Startup Hub and Dubai Technology Entrepreneur Campus (Dtec) jointly organized a roadshow in India where two Indian startups were selected as part of a competition and awarded office space at Dtec. The Dubai Technology Tour, therefore, is yet another initiative in that direction.

In line with attracting international talent to strengthen the UAE’s position, the Central Bank of the UAE and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) have also invited applicants from local and international fintech to participate in the 2020 edition of the FinTech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge. The objective of the event was to address specific challenges in the financial services sector and come up with innovative solutions to make SMEs instrumental stakeholders in the UAE’s plan for economic transformation.

If successful, fintech applicants will each receive a stipend of $20,000 to partner with a corporate champion and co-develop an innovative proof of concept (POC) solution to a problem statement. MENA’s largest fintech festival, FinTech Abu Dhabi 2020, which will be jointly held by the central bank and ADGM from November 24 to 26, will showcase the approved concepts. An additional funding grant of up to $40,000 will also be provided to help finance the development of the POC solutions after the challenge as well.

These initiatives are just a few among the many that the UAE has undertaken to speed up the digital transformation of the financial sector by adopting the right technologies. The Tech Tour has been designed to highlight the value of public and private sector collaboration and embody the aim of encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship as the main driver of the economy of Dubai and the UAE. With the right collaborators, UAE may be able to reach its goals soon.

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