Dubai Future Accelerators draws 46 participants for third round

Dubai’s government accelerator programme has announced 46 companies will participate in its third round.

Dubai Future Accelerators said it received more than 1,100 applications to address key challenges outlined by government departments and companies.

These include the development of a self-driving ground support fleet for airline Emirates, reducing healthcare costs and increasing efficiency for Dubai Health Authority and reducing the general crime rate by 50 per cent for Dubai Police.

Read: Emirates seeks self-driving fleet, AI training through Dubai Future Accelerators

The accepted applicants include 10 from the US, nine from the UAE, eight from the UK, four from Austria, three from Canada, two from News Zealand, two from Singapore and one company from China, Germany, Hungary, Lebanon, South Africa, Spain, South Korea and the Netherlands.

The third edition will be held over nine weeks starting this month and incudes US technology company IBM, Finland’s Nokia and South Korea’s LG.

Previous editions attracted 4,000 applications and saw participation from 65 international companies.

Of these, 72 per cent signed a memorandum of understanding with their government partner at the end of the programme and are implementing pilot projects.

This year’s Humanitarian Accelerators programme also signed an agreement with Dubai Cares and received three submissions, two from the US and one from the UAE.

The inaugural programme aims to address social, cultural and environmental challenges in the Arab world.