For all the flak that Dubai gets online, it’s hard not to appreciate what a small fishing town has made of itself in a few decades. What’s more spectacular is that it doesn’t owe its wealth to oil reserves (like its neighbours do), but to innovative and daring decision-making by its leaders, who’ve displayed brilliant foresight on multiple occasions.
A spanking new technology hub has now taken firm roots in Dubai, attracting a steady stream of tech entrepreneurs and investors.
Exemplary handling of the pandemic, policies designed to foster startups in the tech space, and a wholehearted embrace of blockchain/crypto and web3 technologies saw sector investment increase from around $300M to about $1.4B between 2020 and 2021.