The UAE’s Ministry of Education announced on Sunday that in-person learning would resume across the country from Monday, May 11, following a period of disruption linked to regional developments.

The ministry said all students, teaching staff and administrative employees in public and private schools, nurseries, and public and private higher education institutions would return to classrooms starting Monday.

The decision follows continuous monitoring of developments and coordination with the relevant authorities.

Schools to continue implementing approved safety protocols with in-person learning reinstated

The ministry said educational institutions would continue to implement approved safety and security protocols to support the smooth continuation of classes.

It also said schools, nurseries and universities would remain prepared to shift to alternative learning models if required, depending on ongoing developments and assessments.

The ministry added that they were continuing to coordinate with educational institutions to ensure a smooth return to in-person learning and said any further updates would be communicated through official channels.

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has opened a new 500-metre bridge under the World Trade Centre Roundabout Development Project, marking another major step in the emirate’s efforts to improve mobility and ease traffic congestion across key routes.

The newly launched bridge is designed to serve outbound traffic from Al Bada’ towards 2nd December Street, providing smoother access to Sheikh Rashid Road and Al Mustaqbal Street. Officials said the project forms part of Dubai’s wider strategy to strengthen road infrastructure and support the city’s growing population and urban expansion.

According to a Dubai Media Office report, the bridge is expected to significantly improve traffic movement in one of Dubai’s busiest districts, while supporting the leadership’s vision of making Dubai one of the world’s best cities for mobility and quality of life.

Travel time reduced from eight minutes to two

RTA said the single-lane bridge stretches approximately 500 metres and can handle up to 1,200 vehicles per hour. The authority added that the new route is expected to reduce travel time for motorists heading from Al Bada’ towards Sheikh Rashid Road and Al Mustaqbal Street from eight minutes to just two minutes.

Read more-Dubai’s road overhaul: New roads, bridges to transform commutes

The bridge is the latest addition to the World Trade Centre Roundabout Development Project, which has already seen the opening of three bridges aimed at improving connectivity and reducing delays across surrounding areas.

Officials highlighted that the Trade Centre district remains one of Dubai’s most strategically important locations due to its proximity to Sheikh Zayed Road, a major traffic corridor connecting several parts of the city.

“The project reflects RTA’s ongoing commitment to developing integrated infrastructure solutions that enhance the efficiency of Dubai’s road network,” the report stated.

Major infrastructure push continues

As part of the wider project, RTA is also converting the signalised intersection on 2nd December Street into a free-flow intersection. The move is expected to further improve traffic circulation and reduce congestion for motorists travelling towards Sheikh Rashid Road and Al Mustaqbal Street.

The World Trade Centre Roundabout Development Project includes the construction of six bridges spanning a total of 5,000 metres. Once completed, the project will allow free-flowing traffic in several directions and improve connectivity between major roads across the area.

RTA previously opened a bridge connecting Sheikh Zayed Road with Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Street in February 2026.

Earlier, in December 2025, two additional bridges were launched to serve traffic moving from 2nd December Street towards Sheikh Rashid Road and Al Majlis Street, eventually linking with Al Mustaqbal Street.

The two bridges, with a combined length of 2,000 metres, can accommodate around 6,000 vehicles per hour.

More upgrades planned across the area

The project also includes two additional bridges featuring two lanes in each direction. These bridges will connect Al Majlis Street and Sheikh Rashid Road with 2nd December Street while strengthening links to Al Mustaqbal Street.

Together, the upcoming bridges will extend another 2,000 metres and support traffic volumes of approximately 6,000 vehicles per hour.

In addition, the existing World Trade Centre Roundabout will be transformed into a signalised at-grade intersection, further enhancing mobility and streamlining traffic movement in the surrounding district.

As restaurant operators battle rising food costs, labour shortages and increasingly thin margins, attention is shifting from flashy front-of-house experiences to a less visible battleground: the kitchen. Dubai-born Supy is betting that better control over inventory, procurement and wastage can unlock significant savings for restaurant groups, and the strategy is gaining traction well beyond the Gulf.

Now operating in over 40 countries across the Middle East, the UK and Asia-Pacific, the company works with major hospitality groups including Rikas Hospitality Group, Addmind Hospitality and Sketch, using AI to help operators track food costs in real time and reduce inefficiencies.

In this interview, Dani El Zein, co-founder and CEO of Supy , explains why the future of restaurant profitability will be decided behind the kitchen door, and how AI is turning operational data into real-time decisions.

Tell us about Supy.

Supy is the operating system for multi-location restaurant groups. We give operators complete visibility into their back of house, what they’re spending, what they’re wasting, and where their margins are going, with AI built into the core from day one.

Most restaurant groups running 10, 20, 50 locations are still managing purchasing and inventory on spreadsheets, ERP systems, or systems built 15 years ago, and the margin pressure that creates is real and massive. Supy fixes that.

We connect your purchases, kitchen, sales, recipes, wastage, stock, and all your data into one intelligent layer that doesn’t just show you what happened but tells you what to do about it. We’re live across 42 countries with strong footholds in the Middle East, the UK, and Asia Pacific, and the product travels because the problem is universal.

Margin pressure and supply chain complexity don’t care what city you’re in.

Supy is a UAE-born business that has expanded regionally, but also internationally in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong. What was the secret to successfully exporting the platform? And how do the markets differ?

The secret starts with where we were born. Dubai is not a typical SaaS market. When we launched, we were not competing with other inventory platforms or back-of-house tools. We were competing with Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics. Full ERPs.

That forced us to build something far more modular and configurable than we ever would have if we had started in London or New York. We had to match the flexibility of an enterprise system while staying laser focused on restaurants.

That decision, made out of pure necessity in our earliest days, turned out to be our biggest international advantage. When we expanded into the UK, Australia, and Hong Kong, every market had different workflows, different supplier dynamics, different operational structures, and Supy could bend to fit all of them.

Beyond that, every market tests you differently. The UK is our most competitive arena, operators are sophisticated, they know the category, they have seen the alternatives, and they will stress test every corner of your product before they sign.

Australia is about ROI clarity; minimum wage pressure is real, and operators need to know the system pays for itself fast. Hong Kong is everything at once, fast-moving, high-density, globally minded operators who want enterprise capability at startup speed.

You just have to commit, hire people already embedded in each market, and back them properly.

Dani, you have run a restaurant yourself. Has that helped you understand what restaurants really need, rather than just being another tech solution in search of a market?

Absolutely, and I think it shows in the product in ways that are hard to fake. When you have stood in a kitchen, when you have dealt with a delivery at the back door at 7am, when you have tried to reconcile what was ordered versus what actually arrived while your prep team is waiting, you think about software completely differently.

You stop designing for the demo and start designing for the moment. Every workflow in Supy, every click, every screen, is built around how an operator actually thinks and moves, not how a product manager imagined they might. That is something our customers notice very quickly. They open the platform, and it just makes sense. It reflects the reality of their operation rather than forcing their operation to adapt to ours.

Most restaurant tech is built by people who understand technology. Supy is built by people who understand restaurants. That is a fundamentally different starting point, and it changes everything about what you build and how you build it

You mentioned that “back of house” operations – in the kitchen – are key to improving restaurant groups’ performance. Why is that?

Because the back of house is where the money is actually made or lost. Everyone obsesses over the front of house, the experience, the service, the ambiance. But your profitability is determined by what happens behind the kitchen door.

Food cost is typically 20-35 per cent of revenue, and most operators are managing it blind. They do not know their actual food cost in real time, they do not know if their recipes are being followed, they do not know which locations are over ordering. They find out at the end of the month when the numbers come in and by then the money is already gone.

Supy brings that visibility into the present. Recipe costs down to the ingredient level, actual versus theoretical consumption, trends across locations so you can act before a problem becomes a pattern. Front of house drives revenue. Back of house determines whether any of that revenue actually becomes profit

What are Supy’s competitive differentiators?

A few things separate us, and they compound on each other. First is depth. Supy is not a lightweight inventory tool. It is a system built to handle the complexity of serious multi-location operations, the kind of configurability and workflow depth that you would historically only get from an ERP.

Second is integrations. We connect with the widest range of POS systems, accounting platforms, and supplier networks in the market, which means Supy sits at the center of your entire operation rather than being another siloed tool.

Third is our technology infrastructure. We built on a world-class tech stack from day one, which means the platform is fast, reliable, and scales cleanly whether you are running five locations or 500.

Fourth is AI, and I do not mean AI as a feature we bolted on. The intelligence layer is core to how Supy works, it is what turns your operational data into decisions rather than just reports. And finally, support. This is one we hear constantly from customers who have come from other platforms. When something happens, a real person who understands your operation picks up.

At the scale our customers operate, downtime or confusion is not a minor inconvenience, it is a business problem, and we treat it that way.

How fundamental is AI to Supy’s business model? And what are the advantages of that AI for your restaurant group clients?

We started as a system of record. Now we are a system of intelligence and that is a fundamentally different thing. The intelligence layer sits across your entire operation and turns data into decisions.

Anomaly detection catches a food cost spike at one of your outlets before it becomes a trend. AI invoice processing scans every supplier invoice, matches it, and flags any pricing discrepancy before approval. Suppliers behave differently when they know every line is being checked. AI sales forecasting and predictive ordering means your purchasing is no longer based on gut feelings, it is based on a model that understands your demand patterns across every location.

The direction we are heading is agentic AI, food cost agents that do not just flag problems but act on them. The shift is from having a system to having a co-pilot.

You have clients such as Corrigan Collection and Sketch in the UK for example. Who else do you work with, and how have you persuaded such strong brands to work with you?

Our client base spans some of the most respected operators in the world. In the Middle East, groups like Rikas Hospitality (part of Ennismore), which is behind Gigi Beach Club, Mimi Kakushi, and Maison Revka. There’s also Addmind Hospitality, Nammos, Ce La Vi, The Address Coffee and Home Bakery.

In Australia, we work with brands like Zeus Street Greek and Mulberry Group, serious multi-location operators who represent exactly the kind of growth-focused restaurant business Supy is built for. In Asia Pacific more broadly, groups like Dough Bros who operate across Hong Kong, China, and Thailand. In the UK, alongside Corrigan Collection and Sketch, we are growing quickly with operators like Poke Shack, You Me Sushi, and Burger and Sauce.

As for how we earn them, there is no shortcut. Hospitality is a word of mouth industry. You deliver for one operator, they tell another. When we entered the UK, strong partners like Lightspeed and Williams Stanley & Co helped open doors. But operators of that calibre sign because they have done their due diligence, and they believe the product will deliver.

The only thing that really matters is making sure it does.

What keeps restaurant owners awake at night? And how does Supy help them?

Not knowing if they are making or losing money. That is genuinely the answer.

You can have a full restaurant every night and still be losing money because your food cost is out of control, your recipes are not being followed, your suppliers are overcharging you on deliveries, and nobody caught it. The numbers only show up at the end of the month and by then the damage is done. What keeps operators up at night is that feeling of flying blind. Revenue looks fine, the restaurant feels busy, but the margin is quietly disappearing, and they do not know where. Supy fixes that.

We give operators a real-time view of exactly where their money is going, down to the ingredient, down to the location, down to the supplier. So instead of finding out on the 30th that you had a bad month, you know on Tuesday that something is wrong, and you fix it on Wednesday.

You claim to reduce restaurant costs by 20 per cent. Where are these savings made?

Most operators we speak to don’t actually know their real food cost. They have a theoretical one sitting in a recipe card and an actual one that tells a very different story at the end of the month. That gap is where the 20 per cent operates.

Once you have visibility, the levers become obvious. Wastage that was never being recorded. Portion variance that nobody was catching – one of our clients was over-portioning a single ingredient by just a few grams across hundreds of servings a day, which added up to tens of thousands of dollars a year. Nobody had caught it because nobody had the data to catch it. Then there’s ordering decisions made on gut feel rather than actual consumption data, and supplier invoices that don’t match what was actually received.

These aren’t exotic problems. They’re happening in almost every kitchen we walk into. The savings don’t come from one big fix – they come from closing a hundred small gaps that individually look manageable but collectively are destroying the margin.

For any company buying and integrating a new technology, using it has to be easy. How long does Supy take to install and train staff on?

This is where the industry has been burned before. Legacy software that takes six months to implement and never fully works. We’ve built our entire implementation model around speed and simplicity. Most clients go live within weeks, not months.

The product itself is designed so that a kitchen porter or store manager can use it on day one – it runs on a mobile app, it’s intuitive, and we deliberately didn’t build it for finance teams sitting behind a desktop (although it works great for them too). And our implementation team is mostly former cost controllers, not software consultants. They’ve worked in kitchens, they understand the operation, and they set clients up in a way that maps to how their team actually.

And of course, we have some AI hacks that help speed things up, getting recipe and supplier data into the system much faster than a human alone could.

What does 2026 hold for Supy?

We’ve launched AI Sales Forecasting and our Command Centre, which brings all of our AI capabilities together in one place, real-time anomaly detection, predictive ordering, and the beginnings of agentic AI that does not just flag problems but acts on them.

Alongside that, we are launching our co-pilot, an AI layer that sits across your entire operation and starts making decisions on your behalf, adjusting orders, flagging variances, closing the loop without someone having to initiate it.

We are also expanding into new product verticals, production planning is a big one, giving operators the ability to plan and manage what gets produced in their kitchens based on forecasted demand rather than guesswork.

On the market side we are doubling down in the UK, Australia, and Southeast Asia where we are seeing the strongest traction, and we are entering Europe with Germany being our first move, before entering the US before the end of year.

The bigger picture is that back of house generates the richest operational data in the entire restaurant industry and it has been sitting there largely untapped. 2026 is the year we unlock it.

As demand for GLP-1 weight loss therapies accelerates globally, the UAE is witnessing a parallel surge in interest around newer formats such as oral treatments. But with accessibility increasing, so too are concerns around misuse — particularly as prescription medications begin to appear on unregulated online platforms.

For Dr. Ihsan Almarzooqi, co-founder and managing director of Metabolic, the issue is not just regulatory — it is fundamentally clinical.

“It is not acceptable, and in the UAE it is not legal,” he says, referring to the online sale of prescription-only GLP-1 therapies such as Foundayo without medical consultation.

Metabolic (formerly GluCare.Health) announced it will provide early access to Eli Lilly’s newly approved oral GLP-1 therapy, Foundayo (orforglipron), shortly after receiving approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The move makes Metabolic the first provider outside the US to offer the treatment, highlighting both its strategic partnership with Eli Lilly and the UAE’s growing status as a hub for advanced medical therapies. The development came after the Emirates Drug Establishment (EDE) formally approved Foundayo on April 3, making the UAE the second country globally to register the innovative drug.

The growing availability of oral GLP-1 medications has created a perception shift among patients, with some viewing them as over-the-counter solutions rather than tightly regulated treatments.

“The fact that it is now available as a pill makes it feel more like an over-the-counter product to some people. It is not. The format changed. The clinical requirements did not,” Almarzooqi explains.

In the UAE, federal law clearly prohibits the sale and purchase of prescription medications without a valid prescription issued by a licensed physician. However, enforcement challenges — particularly across digital channels — are exposing patients to unregulated access.

Beyond legality, the bigger concern is patient safety. GLP-1 therapies require detailed medical screening before prescription, including assessments of thyroid history, cardiovascular health, hormonal status, and existing medications.

“There are absolute contraindications. There are drug interactions. And there is no way to identify any of this through an online checkout,” he says.

A growing clinical concern

The rise of self-prescribed GLP-1 use is emerging as a significant public health issue, particularly as patients attempt to manage dosing, duration, and discontinuation independently.

“It is a serious problem, and I think we are only beginning to see the consequences,” Almarzooqi says.

He outlines multiple layers of risk. Patients may unknowingly fall into contraindicated categories, such as those with a history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or MEN2 syndrome. Others may misuse dosing protocols, escalating too quickly and triggering severe side effects.

“GLP-1 medications require gradual titration. Patients who escalate too quickly experience severe nausea, vomiting, and dehydration,” he explains.

Equally concerning is the lack of understanding around treatment discontinuation.

“Stopping without a maintenance plan almost always leads to rapid weight regain. Patients then blame the medication, rather than understanding that obesity is a chronic condition requiring long-term management.”

Much of the demand for GLP-1 therapies is driven by their association with rapid weight loss. However, Almarzooqi cautions that patients often misunderstand how these medications work — particularly when used without clinical guidance.

“The first is that weight loss equals fat loss. It does not,” he says.

Without body composition monitoring, patients may be losing significant muscle mass alongside fat. Studies suggest that 20 to 40 per cent of total weight lost on GLP-1 therapy can come from lean muscle, depending on lifestyle factors.

“This matters because muscle is metabolically active tissue. When you lose it, your resting metabolic rate drops,” he explains.

This metabolic shift can create a cycle of plateau during treatment and rapid weight regain after discontinuation, particularly if patients stop abruptly.

“The scale can look very encouraging while the metabolic picture is quietly deteriorating.”

A treatment, not a shortcut

Another area of confusion is whether GLP-1 therapies are fundamentally diabetes drugs or weight management treatments.

“GLP-1 receptor agonists were originally developed for type 2 diabetes management,” Almarzooqi says. “Foundayo is approved as a weight management treatment.”

This distinction is critical, as eligibility criteria, dosing strategies, and monitoring requirements differ depending on the clinical context. “What I want patients to understand is that weight management approval does not mean it is appropriate for everyone who wants to lose weight. It is a prescription treatment for people with obesity or with overweight and related health conditions.”

While patients purchasing GLP-1 medications online may have some awareness of common side effects, Almarzooqi notes that understanding is often superficial. “They understand the common side effects in broad terms… What they do not understand are the more serious warning signs that require immediate medical attention,” he says.

These include symptoms such as severe abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, or signs of pancreatitis — all of which require clinical intervention. “They also do not understand how to manage the common side effects properly… Without a dietitian involved from the beginning, patients are managing this blind.” This gap highlights a fundamental limitation of unregulated access: the absence of structured clinical support. “A disclaimer page is not clinical support.”

Why monitoring is non-negotiable

As GLP-1 therapies are increasingly used for long-term weight management, ongoing medical supervision is becoming critical.

“It is not optional,” Almarzooqi says. “These are chronic medications being used for a chronic condition.”

Long-term monitoring includes tracking thyroid function, cardiovascular health, muscle mass, nutritional status, and metabolic outcomes. Without this oversight, patients risk undetected complications.

“The longer-term safety data on some of these agents is still maturing… Patients on unregulated channels have none of this.”

He also highlights a broader systemic issue: patients purchasing medications outside regulated frameworks are effectively invisible to pharmacovigilance systems that track adverse effects. The growing accessibility of GLP-1 therapies presents a complex challenge for regulators and healthcare providers.

“The reason patients seek these medications outside clinical channels is partly cost, partly access, and partly a healthcare system that has historically underserved obesity,” Almarzooqi says.

Addressing misuse, therefore, requires more than stricter enforcement. While regulators must act against illegal online sales, healthcare systems must also improve legitimate access for eligible patients. “What is needed is a parallel response,” he explains.

This includes making treatment more affordable, reducing administrative barriers, and improving public understanding of how these therapies should be used.

At Metabolic, GLP-1 therapy is embedded within a comprehensive clinical framework designed to optimise outcomes and minimise risks.

“When a patient comes to us, they go through what we call a Metabolic Baseline,” Almarzooqi says.

This includes a full assessment of hormonal, metabolic, and cardiovascular health, followed by ongoing monitoring through physician consultations, dietitian support, and advanced diagnostic tools.

“The medication is the same. The outcome is not,” he says, contrasting this approach with self-medication.

A long-term view of treatment

Ultimately, the rise of GLP-1 therapies reflects a significant shift in how obesity is treated — from a lifestyle issue to a chronic medical condition requiring structured intervention.

“Obesity is a chronic, complex, and often relentless condition,” Almarzooqi says.

While new formats such as oral medications are improving accessibility, they also risk reinforcing the misconception that treatment is simple.

“GLP-1 medications are a genuine advance… But they are tools within a clinical framework, not solutions outside of one.”

As demand continues to grow, the challenge for healthcare systems, regulators, and providers will be to ensure that access does not come at the expense of safety — and that patients understand that the effectiveness of these therapies depends as much on the care around them as the medication itself.

The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) in UAE has intensified efforts to promote health preparedness and preventive care for UAE pilgrims ahead of the Hajj season 2026, stressing the importance of early medical readiness to ensure a safe and comfortable pilgrimage experience.

The ministry said pilgrims should follow approved health guidelines, receive required vaccinations, and adhere to medical advice before and during travel to reduce potential health risks during the annual pilgrimage.

According to a WAM report, the initiative reflects the UAE’s proactive approach to strengthening preventive healthcare and supporting the wellbeing of citizens throughout their Hajj journey. Authorities are also continuing coordination efforts to ensure pilgrims receive accurate health guidance and access to essential medical support.

Read more-Hajj 2026: Saudi announces up to SAR100,000 fine ahead of pilgrimage

Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, Minister of Health and Prevention, said the UAE is committed to developing an advanced preventive healthcare system that prioritises readiness and public awareness.

“The UAE adopts a proactive vision to build an advanced preventive healthcare model that goes beyond service delivery to strengthening readiness and raising awareness to support informed health decisions,” Al Sayegh said.

Focus on vaccinations and medical preparedness

MoHAP stressed that receiving mandatory vaccinations before travelling is essential, particularly the meningococcal vaccine, alongside other recommended immunisations in line with approved medical guidelines.

Officials said the measures are aimed at reducing the spread of infectious diseases and helping pilgrims complete Hajj rituals safely and comfortably.

The ministry and health authorities also urged pilgrims to visit healthcare centres early to complete medical examinations and confirm their fitness for travel, particularly older adults, pregnant women, and individuals living with chronic illnesses.

Al Sayegh said cooperation between national entities would strengthen response efforts and help deliver the best possible healthcare environment for UAE pilgrims.

“He added that these efforts further reinforce the UAE’s position in developing impactful and forward-looking health programmes based on early planning and sustainable preparedness,” the report said.

Pilgrims advised to follow safety measures during Hajj

Authorities advised pilgrims to maintain preventive practices throughout the Hajj season, including wearing masks in crowded areas, maintaining personal hygiene, staying hydrated, and avoiding prolonged exposure to direct sunlight to minimise the risk of heat exhaustion.

Additional guidance was issued for people with chronic conditions, including carrying enough medication, keeping medical reports accessible, and following prescribed treatment plans during travel.

MoHAP said health awareness updates and guidance will continue to be shared through official communication channels, digital platforms, smart applications, websites, and SMS services during the Hajj season.