SEF 2024 discussions explore frontiers of Deep Tech, Biohacking with industry leaders

Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival

The inaugural day at Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival (SEF) 2024 featured an exploration of the emerging industry of Deep Tech, capturing the audience's attention with revelations from industry pioneers.

Through two focused talks, involving augmented reality, deep learning, and the convergence of technology with holistic wellness, they provided attendees a glimpse into the true potential of cutting-edge innovations in relation to health.

The first talk, titled ‘From Lab to Launch: The Roadmap for MENA Deep Tech Startups’, featured Akram Amir, Founder & CEO of AR Engineering, Simo Alami, a serial entrepreneur investing in cutting-edge tech projects based in Dubai, host of the Simo Show, and was moderated by Amine Staali, Founder & CEO at Deepminds.

Akram Amir, with a background in Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, made it his mission to make knowledge more accessible by delivering profound immersive experiences for STEM. His company, AR Engineering, which was nurtured through the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa) ecosystem, comprises a team of engineers dedicated to advancing and deploying Mixed Reality (MR), Extended Reality (XR), and Augmented Reality, to enhance user experiences and bring them closer to experiencing the physical realm from a remote setting.

Amir shared his journey, acknowledging the initial challenges in forming a startup in deep tech, and how he and his team had to initially educate themselves on best practices. Engaging with the audience, he expanded on the importance of trial and error when starting a business, stating, “Behind the majority of successful startups is a great deal of failure. It is only through overcoming our challenges that we can learn how to be better in everything we do, and this is even more applicable in deep tech where research, development and testing an idea are vital.”

Simo Alami discussed the transformative nature of technology, stressing the importance of custom-trained AI for specific company needs and debunked fears about AI taking jobs and emphasising the need to master AI. He highlighted the importance of credibility, consistency, and resiliency in the Deep Tech sector and that investment within the industry will pay off greatly in the future for both the investor and the general public.

Session moderator Amine Staali, the founder of DeepMinds - the MENA region’s first DeepTech localisation venture studio dedicated to rigorous validation processes ensuring technological robustness and market readiness, remarked, “The time and efforts made in the Deep Tech sector will pay off greatly once a new product or service is created, and that startups must not be intimidated by the process of proper research and testing of an idea”.

The second talk, titled ‘Biohacking: The Next Frontier for Holistic Wellness’, showcased Mohit Kumar, Founder & CEO of Ultrahuman, Ali Hashemi, Co-Founder and Chairman of GluCare.Health, and was moderated by Shaima Ghafoor, Commercial Tech Generalist.

The fireside chat explored the evolving industry of Deep Tech specifically related to holistic wellness, where Mohit Kumar spoke about his company that is now regarded as the world's largest metabolic health platform. Discussing their real-time data-based approach and leadership in the metabolic health space, Kumar said there is still a great deal of room to grow when it comes to Deep Tech within the health, wellness, and fitness industries.

Ali Hashemi’s company and clinic are regarded as the world’s first healthcare providers to use a hyper-personalised, data-driven approach in managing diabetes. “Even though I feel the term biohacking is overused in the industry, ultimately the concept is using technology to monitor your body and provide usable data that can be used to make incremental changes to one's well being, diet, and lifestyle, to achieve the goal of better health,” he noted.