Mohammad Albalooshi
Appearances
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
which is heavily subsidized to be able to support startups. It's 90% subsidized because our thesis is that, you know, when startups are early stage, they have an idea. We want to make it as easy as possible for these guys to kind of come and launch their ideas. But that is a DRC jurisdiction license. It allows you to operate as a full-fledged entity in a free zone. It can be 100% foreign owned.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
There's no restriction on capital repatriation, no restriction on foreign talent. Now, I think our approach on the AI license was curating an activity which is dedicated. So when you apply for an AI license, we of course look at the business model. It goes through a committee. You're actually somebody that has built or is actually using AI.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So that is more of a validation that yes, you are an AI entity and you get an AI license. So I think for AI companies to come and set up, this is sort of a validation as well that, yes, you are an AI company and you're licensed by Dubai government as an AI entity, which also enables them to kind of go and work with other government entities.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So I think there's been multiple announcements in terms of our expansion plans to be able to cater to the demand. And as mentioned earlier, we're very bullish on the sector. We believe this will create a lot of growth for us. And growth for us is mainly companies that are successful and create a lot of jobs. And in return, of course, has a ripple effect on the GDP.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
We, of course, have announced that the innovation ecosystem will grow significantly. We just moved into innovation one, and that is additional space of 200,000 square feet. And we further announced the IFC innovation two, which is even more space that should be ready sometime in 26, just to be able to cater to the demand that is coming.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And I think on the AI side, we have announced that by 28, we should have a dedicated campus, which will have more than 100,000 square feet, which will be a facility of 100,000 square feet. And it will be home to more than 500 companies. Definitely, there is more investment going into the community. We want to make sure that we're catering to the demand and the growth of these companies.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
I joined the IFC and ever since I've been driving the innovation mandate at the IFC. So for fun these days, if I get some time off, I just try and watch some TV. It really helps me, you know, take a break and shift my mind from everything else. So But apart from that, these days I hang with friends. And back in the day, of course, there was a lot more activity.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
But at the same time, we're looking at further enriching the community. So we continuously look at what else can be done to support the growth of startups. How can we try and bring in venture studios into the mix? How can we try and bring family offices into the mix and other corporates as well who could come and partner and help these startups scale?
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Honestly, we've been running programs for almost seven, eight years now. Initially, a lot of the programs were focused on fintech, which continue to run. We, of course, do serve a lot of the financial institutions. But recently with AI, we're working with one of our telcos, for example, Do, that is looking at AI for SMEs. So how can AI enable small and medium enterprises?
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
We have a program with Ripple. It's called Ripple XRPL Scale-Up Accelerator Program. Another interesting one is we're doing a global AI challenge with Dubai Civil Defense, where actually we're looking at using AI for fire prediction. And then, of course, we do some programs cross-border as well. We do some programs that are for specific use cases within financial institutions.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So there's a number of programs. I think another thing that we try to do is we don't want to just run our own programs. We also want to make sure that there are other players that run programs. So, for example, we have Antler based in the Innovation Hub as well that runs a lot of programs from the DIFC Innovation Hub.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Leverage the friendly ecosystem to your advantage. Dubai is extremely bullish. We as the IFC are extremely bullish on startups and what they can bring in. There's a lot of focus. The D33 strategy, of course, pushes growth and enablement of startups significantly. There is leverage, of course, the free zones that are available in Dubai. Take advantage of the government initiatives.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
The network is great. Also, I think it's a jurisdiction where you'd be able to attract top talent. You yourselves, I'm sure, would love to be here to be able to grow your business, I think. as government entity as a city, we're trying to make sure that we create the best ecosystem for startups for them to be able to grow and thrive. So try and learn about it.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Try and visit if you haven't visited already, because I personally feel everything is being curated to support growth of startups.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
I really enjoyed being on the show.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
But these days I don't have much time.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So DIFC Innovation Hub is the largest startup ecosystem in the Middle East and North African region. Today, it's home to more than a thousand fintech and innovation companies, so startups. And again, the aim is to build and, of course, cater towards the startup community. The beauty of the DIFC Innovation Hub is that It sits within the financial center of Dubai.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And it, of course, benefits from the unique legal and regulatory infrastructure. So, you know, the common law framework, it enjoys the court system, the unique IP law, the data protection laws, which are quite attractive to startups and tech companies in particular. Geographically, the IFC is in downtown Dubai. It's right next to the Burj.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So this center that we've established also sits in the center of the city, makes it pretty accessible from any part of the city, and it's in a pretty vibrant place. I think what also makes a lot of sense for DIFC is the proximity to all the financial institutions and all the, let's say, money managers. I usually say startups want to be next to all the investors.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So DIFC, of course, is home to the who's who of the world and, of course, the who's who of the region. For startups to be next to that pool of capital, that makes a lot of sense. It started with a very, I would say, a humble idea back in 2016, when Dubai had made it very clear that it wants to be at the forefront of innovation.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And the IFC, of course, wanted to position itself as a leader in the space. In a very humble way, we created an accelerator just to understand, because before that, the IFC always catered towards the large financial institutions and service providers. But I think in 2016, we realized that we have to look at startups because there was a lot of potential in startups.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And it was clear to us that a lot of the growth for us is going to come from startups. So how do we now build a proposition or position ourselves as a hub for that ecosystem? So we started looking at the ecosystem by launching an accelerator program. What that did is it taught us a lot. I still remember, you know, all of a sudden we started speaking to a clientele that is very different.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
I usually make a joke. I say startups want everything and they don't want to pay for it. Because they want a lot of handholding, they want a lot of financial support, a lot of financial subsidy. I think making that case to the leadership that this is a sector that we need to invest in, in the beginning, but in the long term, that will do great for Dubai.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And of course, from an economic growth perspective for the IFC, of course. And honestly, we're seeing that today. Today, we have companies that have gone very big in size. They've been able to raise and attract a lot of global capital, and they've created a lot of jobs, which essentially is our top main priority, creating jobs, next generation jobs. That's one of my main KPIs.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So I think a humble beginning. I think the first time when we started, we took an office space of about 3,000 square feet. Today, the Innovation Hub spans over more than 300,000 square feet. So it has grown 100x over the last six years, even when it comes to the number of jobs that have been created or the number of companies, how it has grown over the last few years.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
You know, we started our fintech journey in 2017, and we did pretty good. I think we grew significantly, and we created and dedicated the largest startup ecosystem in the region. And it was sometime in 23 when AI, of course, became AI. We talked to ourselves. We said, what can we do when it comes to AI?
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And I think the question we said to ourselves that the thing that we do best is creating ecosystems. We've done it really well when it comes to professional services and financial services. We did it for startups in fintech and surrounding sectors. AI is so big and it's going to, let's say, it will cut through all sectors. We believe it needs a much more dedicated approach.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Hence, we said, why not be a bit ambitious and look at it from a Dubai perspective? And this goes back to, you know, if you look at Dubai and how Dubai basically creates these ecosystems, if today you were to look at Dubai, there's a specific jurisdiction that caters to, for example, design. There's a specific jurisdiction that caters and is responsible for sector development.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
There's a specific jurisdiction that focuses on media development. the specific sector that focuses on finance, on education. So I think that's where we said we could potentially build an entire cluster for AI.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And I think we also believed that probably our jurisdiction, given the common law and the unique regulatory framework, positions us best to do it all over again, build an entire ecosystem for artificial intelligence companies. And I think when we started looking at artificial intelligence, we saw it very clearly that it has to be much more than what we had done in the past.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Of course, we have the playbook from what we did for the IFC Innovation Hub in terms of attracting VCs and startups and creating licenses, unique license offerings for them. But for AI, we went and partnered with the likes of NVIDIA, AWS, Microsoft, all the key players. for them to be partners of the AI campus.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So all of these big institutions, they actually power the AI campus by providing specific tools that startups and companies that reside in the AI campus can leverage. We created dedicated licenses, AI-specific licenses, And again, our aim is that we want to attract 500 companies, 500 AI companies by 2028 and hopefully create north of 3000 jobs by that time, AI specific jobs.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
And again, given the amount of interest that we see and the amount of traction we see, we believe those are achievable numbers. There's a much bigger agenda. Dubai, of course, has a universal blueprint for artificial intelligence. The AI campus is one of the key initiatives of that strategy.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Sure, Noah. So I think, you know, as I was mentioning, we started looking at this new ecosystem and we constantly keep in touch with them to see what do they need. From very early days, we looked at their licensing and regulatory requirements. So we created our own regulatory sandbox that actually becomes a testbed for these companies. We created licenses which are curated to their requirements.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
We created co-working spaces for the first time in the center just to make sure that we actually bring an ecosystem that resonates with startups and entrepreneurs. We brought in accelerator programs. So through the accelerator programs, we actually give access to market. So, I mean, if you ask any startup, what do they usually, what do they need?
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
It would be access to market, access to capital, regulatory support, and access to talent. We try and enable all of that through the DIFC Innovation Hub, and we've been able to. I mean, there have been a lot of companies that have gone through our accelerator programs, gone through our sandboxes, and we ourselves invest in startups as well. But not only that, we try and enable investment as well.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So, of course, currently I run the DIFC's Innovation Hub. DIFC stands for Dubai International Financial Centre, which is a very unique financial centre in the Middle East and North Africa markets. It has its own legal and regulatory infrastructure. It's based on English common law, has its own court system.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So one is our own investment fund, but then we take it upon us to try and develop the entire VC ecosystem by attracting other VCs and by encouraging, let's say, family offices to look at this asset class. Some of the success stories, I mean, we actually had our first unicorn last year in 24, a buy-now-pay-later company called Tabby that was valued at $1.5 billion.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Our first robo-advisory company was out of a real estate crowdfunding company. Companies like Stakedata, they actually fractionalize real estate ownership, given real estate that divides the huge real estate market. And there could be many other examples that are there. And honestly, there's so much more that we believe that will come out of this ecosystem.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
It's a mix of many things. One is we want to make sure we have the best in class soft infrastructure. By that, I mean legal framework, the regulatory framework. I think for fintechs globally, I mean, getting a fintech regulator is not easy. The good thing that we have in our part of the world, the regulators are quite progressive and they've made it public as well.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So I think giving them a regulatory environment which is progressive and willing to work with startups is very important. Also, the physical environment is extremely important because at the end of the day, these are engineers, these are entrepreneurs. They want to work in an environment which is attractive and a bit more, as mentioned there, something that resonates with startups.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So Dubai, of course, does a great job in doing that. But I think more importantly for founders, the ability to attract talent. I think Dubai does a phenomenal job in terms of kind of making it as easy as possible for startups to set up shop. I mean, us at the IFC, it's... I would say one of the most easiest jurisdictions to kind of set up a startup and then to be able to actually operate.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
So the time from setting up an entity and then to actually operating, getting your immigration done and getting your bank accounts done. I think all of that is provided as a one-stop shop. So that helps a lot. To elevate Dubai's position, we also try and focus a lot on the community and ecosystem development.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
strategic partnerships with all the major hubs to enable cross-border collaboration for our startups that want to expand outside. But we also host major events. I mean, one of the main things that we do is the Dubai FinTech Summit, where we try and bring the global FinTech community to Dubai. And I think that really helps elevate Dubai's position as a FinTech hub and as a startup hub.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
One thing that Dubai has made very clear from top down, from the government, it's very clear that we want to innovate. Every industry is trying to push the boundaries of innovation. So there's a lot of demand and willingness to innovate, which essentially what that means is the willingness to collaborate with startups.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
it kind of acts like a city within a city and within that city i am responsible for its innovation ecosystem which technically is is the largest of its kind in the entire region but by background i'm a banker so i did about the first eight years of my career i was in banking so i did some corporate banking and some private banking in about 2016 end of 2016 i i moved to the government and i
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
A lot of startups actually want to work with other institutions, be it financial institutions or other conventional institutions. So I think for global startups, I would really urge them to look at Dubai because there's so much happening and there's so much demand for people who are looking for solutions. And we actually do this as well.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
We work with all our corporate partners and help them in scouting startups and innovative technologies.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
To obtain, of course, the DIFC Innovation License and to be part of the DIFC Innovation Hub, It's a physical community. So, yes, you have to be on ground. And honestly, our accelerator programs, I think, are the perfect platform for global startups that are actually looking to enter the market. It gives you the right platform to come and get a pulse of the market and then establish and scale.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
Also, I think, you know, events such as Dubai Fintech Summit, we also host them so people from other parts of the world can actually come to Dubai and get a pulse of the market, engage with the community, and then hopefully they like the community and the ecosystem here and decide to set up shop and be on ground.
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Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO, DIFC Innovation Hub
For you to operate, you would need a license, a commercial license. You need to set up a legal entity for you to be able to, of course, open a bank account, a business bank account, and hire people and so on and so forth. So I think in the IFC, given its unique legal framework, we've been able to create dedicated licenses. So initially, we had the IFC Innovation License.