MBZUAI Entrepreneurship Program Announces Winners of AI Startup Pitch Competition

The recent Entrepreneurship Courses at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) concluded with great success, featuring 12 AI-based startup business plans presented at an on-campus event in Masdar City. The event highlighted the university’s commitment to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of artificial intelligence.

The program, a collaboration between MBZUAI’s Incubation and Entrepreneurship Center (MIEC) and startAD, aimed to boost the AI startup ecosystem in Abu Dhabi. The event showcased the top three pitches chosen by a panel of esteemed judges, including industry experts such as Jean-Luc Scherer, Mariam Al Badr, Dr. Ramzi Ben Ouaghrem, Michael Huang, and Selim Tira.

The top three startup pitches featured Audiomatic, Limb, and Momzo. Audiomatic showcased its automatic and emotionally intelligent audio production services, while Limb presented an application that provides accessible physiotherapy information. Momzo, on the other hand, pitched a complete AI assistant for women’s maternity to motherhood powered by generative AI.

According to Sultan Al Hajji, MBZUAI’s Vice President of Public Affairs and Alumni Relations, “These are the first AI-focused entrepreneurship courses at the university and in the UAE, and comes on the eve of an expected AI startup boom led by generative AI. The entrepreneurship courses actively encourage students to take advantage of the favourable entrepreneurial environment in Abu Dhabi and ignite the potential to transform their research and engineering know-how into a business. The startup pitches highlight specific-industry and application-use cases and have the potential to make a significant impact on society with their bold, sophisticated, and innovative concepts.”

Ramesh Jagannathan, Managing Director of startAD, also commented on the significance of AI in the current technological landscape. “With the proliferation of artificial intelligence, for the first time in human history, technology is poised to help shine the cultural identities of individuals and societies across the world in an uncompromising way,” said Jagannathan. “According to an Accenture Report, AI will add £182 billion in annual gross value to the UAE’s economy by 2035. These startup projects demonstrate high potential and are poised to strengthen the UAE’s knowledge economy.”

Overall, the MBZUAI Entrepreneurship Program has provided a platform for budding AI entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative concepts and make a lasting impact in the field of artificial intelligence. The future looks bright for the UAE’s AI startup ecosystem as these startups continue to develop and grow.