District 2020’s entrepreneurship programme to welcome first cohort of 85 startups, small businesses

District 2020’s global entrepreneurship programme, ‘Scale2Dubai’, will welcome its first cohort of 85 startups and small businesses before the end of the year.

The 85 businesses from 27 countries were selected from 628 shortlisted applications. The Scale2Dubai programme attracted more than 3,200 applications from 129 countries.

Tala Al Ansari, director, Innovation Ecosystem and Scale2Dubai, said, “This is an exciting milestone that reiterates District 2020’s commitment to continuing Expo 2020 Dubai’s legacy of supporting entrepreneurs and contributing to Dubai’s status as an innovation-driven global startup capital.

“Only 50 per cent of startups make it to their fifth year, so we are proud to have designed a programme that supports them on this journey and eagerly look forward to welcoming Cohort 1 to District 2020 during Q4 of this year. We plan to host a new cohort every year at District 2020 and look forward to our second cohort moving in by April 2023.”

The 4.38 sq km Expo 2020 Dubai site will close on March 31, and its repurpose work will begin. 80 per cent of Expo-built structures will be reworked to create a mixed-use environment for people to live, work and explore, as well as into a hub for global tech innovation with the first business tenants taking places from Q4 2022.

The city will advance the ambitions of Expo 2020 Dubai to bring diverse thinkers together to devise solutions for a smarter, more sustainable future. Part of this will be the innovative ecosystem and community it seeks to create, encompassing government, Fortune 500s, academic institutions, accelerators, incubators, labs, VCs, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups, official news agency WAM reported.

District 2020 also seeks to play a role in enabling regional and global startups to scale up within Dubai, providing a gateway to access the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Anchor tenants DP World, Siemens, Siemens Energy and Terminus Technologies will play a key role in developing tech-driven solutions, collaborating with enterprises that will come through Scale2Dubai. They will contribute fresh thinking, bringing innovative solutions to the fore and feeding these into the ecosystem, a statement said.