Dr. Anas Bataw

Dr. Bataw plays a vital role driving AEC innovations and digital transformation by contributing to the development and delivery of National standards, guidelines, and ISO in GCC, Singapore and UK. As well as leading initiatives and programs on organizational level with strong leadership abilities and hands-on technical expertise in Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), Design for Manufacture & Assembly (DfMA), Building Information Modelling/ Management (BIM) and Digital Twinning.

Established extensive capabilities developing and leading large-scale AEC innovations programs from R&D, identification, building cases, prototyping, and setting up teams to developing and executing methodologies, processes, procedures and building ecosystems.

Dr. Anas Bataw is the Director of the Centre of Excellence in Smart Construction (CESC). In this role, he has the overall responsibility to advancing industry-led innovations in the built environment to revolutionise the way we develop, manage, and operate smarter cities.

Faisal Al Shehhi

In his current role with Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy Faisal is focused on enabling technology scaleups access the evolving digital business ecosystem of Dubai.

Among his projects: Annual Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Round Table, Startups Outlook Reports, Dubai Tech Tour for Fintech and Healthtech scaleups.

Faisal is an active mentor in local startup ecosystem. To his mentorship practice Faisal brings his previous  experience in Family trading business and private sector, particularly with Chalhoub Group, one of the region’s leaders for luxury retail.

Education: BSA in Finance and Marketing at the American University of Sharjah.

Hana Barakat

Hisham Akhtar

Hisham is an ecosystem builder and business consultant with extensive experience in the entrepreneurship sphere as part of top-tier startup incubators and accelerators. He has advised founders across the venture life cycle on how to build, fund, launch and grow startups in different business verticals, along with advising corporates on how to increase their innovation capabilities.

His current role at Plug and Play entails the strategic leadership, growth and execution of the Industry 4.0 open-innovation platform. This includes understanding and enhancing corporates’ innovation requirements through advisory services and connections with world-class startups. He further supports the regional innovation ecosystem through mentorship of founders and startups, including sourcing investment opportunities for Plug and Play’s venture capital arm.

Prior to this, Hisham launched the region’s first government supported venture studio at the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center. Additionally, he conceptualized and led 10 accelerator programs, advising and supporting 100+ founders through this journey. He started his career at Rocket Internet, one of the largest venture studios globally, leading and advising multiple ventures in the GCC region and managing 500+ partners. Hisham has continued to enhance his business consulting and entrepreneurial skill set by successfully completing the Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program and has successfully earned an MBA from the prestigious London Business School.

Imad Itani

Imad Itani is the Innovation manager for ALEC, one of the leading construction firms in the Gulf region. Imad is an experienced construction professional having background in delivering high profile projects including airports, theme parks, hotels and high-rise towers. He is known for utilizing experience, proactive project management skills and different innovation tools to transform practices in the construction industry.

Imad is highly motivated with a genuine eagerness to learn and develop thus keeping pace of new procedures, strategies, and technologies to stay abreast of developments across different fields.

Passionate about people and utilizing interpersonal skills to increase collaboration between all parties hence adding value across the whole construction ecosystem. Imad has also completed multiple certifications including PMP, EMBA from INSEAD in addition to many other certifications and trainings including innovation.

Imad has been leading the innovation drive across ALEC since early 2017; working with many staff across the organization and promoting the innovation culture. Since inception, many new initiatives were driven from simple ideas into successful projects that generates value to the organization. Continuous improvement is a prime focus and have been utilizing technologies including Data, Analytics, Technology & automation in addition to 3D printing, where it adds value, in increasing efficiency and process improvements. Imad has been featured in many articles explaining construction innovation and have also presented in multiple forums.

Mohamad Sabouneh

Mohamad has 10 years of experience in digital and tech startups from the investor, founder, and accelerator sides. His functional areas range from initial concept validation, venture building, business model design, financial modeling, fundraising, and transaction structuring.
His latest roles include cofounder of Moodfit, MD of Dubai Fintech Accelerator, Venture Lead at Rainmaking, and currently Principal Venture Architect at Injazat/G42 venture builder.
Mohamad holds a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the Lebanese University and an MBA from the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Sameer Sortur

Sameer Sortur is the Founder & CEO at SquareCircle Global with specialities in Early Stage Venture Creation and Venture Deals, Investments, Corporate Innovation, AI & Frontier Technology Development, Market Entry & Tech/IP Commercialization for Early & Growth stage companies. At SquareCircle Global, he has enabled market entry and growth engineering for B2B and B2G focussed tech companies in the Sustainability & Circular Economy, Fintech, Healthtech to launch across Middle East Africa, Asia Pacific and the US. Sameer is actively involved in the early stage startup ecosystem as a Regional Director GCC for Founder Institute, the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator and recently as a Co-Director with Startup Grind Dubai, Startup Grind is the world’s largest community of startups, founders, innovators, and creators conducting 2000+ events across 600+ cities, 125+ countries, 1700+ Chapter team members and 5M+ Community members worldwide.

Daniel Dos Ries

Daniel dos Reis is the Investment Director of Wamda. Before joining Wamda, Daniel was managing Dtec Ventures for five years, the venture capital unit of Dubai technology entrepreneur campus (Dtec) which is part of Dubai Silicon Oasis. From 2012 to 2015, he was the Director of Mobily Ventures in Riyadh, the corporate venture capital arm of Saudi telecoms company Etihad Etisalat. Daniel started his career as a Management Consultant advising clients in the Telecommunication Media and Technology industry in Europe and the Middle East. He has earned a Diplom degree in Business Administration from the University Hamburg.

Mohamad Alwan

Mohamad comes from a corporate finance experience with 10 years of experience in finance, strategy and financial modeling. He started his career as a financial auditor and transitioned to be a finance manager for a group of 16 companies in diverse industries like retail, construction, contracting, and manufacturing.

Mohamad holds a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut and he is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Certified in Strategy and Competitive Advantage (CSCA), & a Certified Advanced Financial Modeler (CAFM).

Anwer Pirani