Author: Stuart

Mohammed Sarwani, Inaya Shaik, Pranav Menon, Abdul Azez and Rouda Sultan El Suwaidi spent weeks creating vibrant illustrations for a card game they knew thousands of families would hold in their hands this Ramadan. The five art students from Rashid Center for People of Determination had no idea their work would reach UAE homes within 15 minutes of being ordered. That’s the promise behind ‘After Sunset’, a limited-edition card game launched on 20th February by Amazon UAE and Emirati entrepreneur Anas Bukhash. The game builds on Bukhash’s #ABtalks platform, known for intimate celebrity interviews that probe beyond surface-level answers. Now…

When you decide to visit a fertility facility, the focus is usually on the doctors and the medicine you take at home, but there is an entire world behind the scenes that actually determines the result. Most people do not think about the laboratory until they are already in the middle of a cycle, yet air quality and equipment stability are just as important as the health of the parents. In a place like Dubai, where the heat and dust can be extreme, the standards for the lab environment must be exceptionally high to protect the delicate life that is…

Kenichi Soga arrived in Dubai on 20 February 2026 with an inconvenient message for Middle East infrastructure leaders: your artificial intelligence and machine learning tools are worthless without proper foundations. The University of California, Berkeley professor delivered the keynote address at Safe Dubai 2026, where his warning landed amid a region pouring billions into metro systems, high-speed rail, airports and urban megaprojects. Machine learning can only deliver value when grounded in robust instrumentation and coherent data, he told delegates. Without that? Dashboards showing nothing useful. The forum marked a pivot. Last year’s Safe Dubai event focused on integration and awareness—getting…

A crystal-clear pool stretches through the centre of Azizi Developments’ latest project, unveiled Wednesday in Al Jaddaf. The beach-style centrepiece anchors what the Dubai-based developer calls a resort-inspired concept for urban professionals and families seeking waterfront living without leaving the city. Azizi Jaddaf Beach Oasis launched on 19 February with freehold studios, one-bedroom apartments, and penthouses. The development targets buyers drawn to Al Jaddaf’s position between Dubai Creek and the city’s central business corridors—a district that has seen accelerated residential development over the past 18 months. The project adds to Azizi’s expanding footprint across Dubai. The developer currently has 150,000…

Pratyush Goel pulled ahead decisively in the final rounds on Tuesday, retaining his crown against 251 rival teams. The pressure was visible. For the second consecutive year, Goel—this time partnered with Kalai from Al-Shaya—claimed the title of Dubai’s Smartest at the 3rd IBPC Dubai Corporate Quiz held on 18th February. His previous victory came solo, representing Abu Dhabi Investment. This time, the stakes felt higher. The numbers tell part of the story. 252 teams. Eight finalists. Four brutal rounds testing everything from QR code origins to Jane Goodall’s research, from IKEA’s founding principles to Hans Zimmer’s compositions. By the time…

On February 18th, executives gathered in Microsoft’s Dubai Internet City offices to discuss something most customer service teams would rather avoid: their own obsolescence. The roundtable, hosted by IT Max Global and Microsoft UAE, confronted a question reshaping contact centres across the Gulf: what happens when AI agents don’t just assist human representatives, but replace them entirely for routine interactions? Naji Salameh has a phrase for it. “The goal of agentic AI is not to replace people,” the IT Max Global chief executive told the room of CX and IT leaders. “It’s to engineer empathy at scale by letting technology…

Protectt.ai unveiled the latest version of its mobile security platform on Tuesday in Dubai, aiming to capture a slice of the Gulf’s fast-growing digital banking market. The upgraded AppProtectt tool combines real-time threat monitoring with behavioural analysis, promising to catch fraudsters before they drain customer accounts. The timing matters. Mobile banking apps have become the primary touchpoint for financial services across the Gulf Cooperation Council, where regulators are tightening requirements around app-level security and customer data protection. Protectt.ai works with banks, insurers and financial services firms to shield high-risk mobile applications from tampering and fraud. At the heart of the…

Century Tower handed over its final keys in February, eight weeks ahead of schedule. The 23-storey residential building in Business Bay stands as an outlier in a market where delays have become the norm and construction costs continue their relentless climb. Most developers are bleeding money from the other direction. AMBS Real Estate Development, which built the 210-unit tower with fäm Properties as master agent, demonstrated what happens when construction starts immediately rather than waiting for sales to close. By the time Century Tower launched in June 2024, building work was already well advanced—an unusual approach that proved prescient as…

Verve Barbershop opened at Fountain Views in Dubai Mall with a custom-engineered barber chair designed exclusively for the space. Not ordered from a catalogue. Engineered. That detail telegraphs the approach. The ground-floor location sits within one of Dubai’s most expensive retail precincts, where every square metre commands premium rent and brands compete for attention. Against that backdrop, Verve’s founders made a calculated bet: that enough men would pay for an experience obsessive in its detail, where Italian mosaics meet Czech lighting design and barbers retrain from scratch in near-forgotten techniques. The space unfolds across several layers. Italian mosaic floors—the kind…

Fahid Island isn’t the kind of place that typically hosts 14,000 people over a single weekend. Yet between 6 and 8 February 2026, the Abu Dhabi island became home to the region’s largest wellness gathering—a three-day convergence of ice baths, biohacking exhibits, and headline speakers ranging from Bear Grylls to bestselling author Marianne Williamson. The Kayan Wellness Festival closed its second edition with numbers that exceeded most regional wellness events by a considerable margin. Organised by Linkviva and Experience Abu Dhabi in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Tourism, the festival carved the island into five distinct zones: The…