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Dubai Student Launches Metaverse Real Estate Summit
The entrepreneur secured funding from the Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Smart Learning Program.
Volston Abreo, an electrical engineering and computing student at Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai, is preparing to launch an innovative real estate summit in the metaverse, known as Real Estate Worldscape 2023.
The summit will support education and knowledge sharing, helping boost Dubai’s property market. The event is based around a hyper-realistic “stage” featuring voice and proximity chat systems. Volston developed his idea with funding from RIT Dubai in collaboration with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Smart Learning Program.
Aimed at bringing together global thought leaders and policymakers, Real Estate Worldscape 2023 will host 20 inspirational speakers and offer workshops, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions. Topics at the conference will include real estate, proptech, entrepreneurship and investments.
Explaining the reasoning behind the summit, 21-year-old Volston said, “The inspiration for our virtual stage, Flege, came during the pandemic when we saw the potential of the metaverse in creating an ecosystem where people connect to physical experiences through the virtual world. I decided to focus on the real estate sector to help launch the ecosystem because it is one of the most established industries here, yet it has been slow in the uptake of innovation. I wanted to change the mindset of people in the business, to show the value of bringing technology into the sector”.
The summit will also feature a simulation that takes delegates back to 2012 when Dubai was still recovering from the global financial crisis. Participants will “enter a digital twin of Dubai where their goal is to achieve cashflow by analyzing market trends and making sound decisions to buy and sell properties at the right time and from the right place,” Volston explained.
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Volston is already part of Dubai’s Silicon Oasis, with his own office and a team of seven employees. The student entrepreneur says his sights are firmly set on building a decentralized digital ecosystem despite not yet having graduated from RIT Dubai.
The Real Estate Worldscape 2023 will take place later this month.
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Nano Banana 2 Arrives In MENA For Google Gemini Users
Google brings its latest image model to Gemini and Search, adding 4K output and tighter text control for regional users.
Google has opened access to Nano Banana 2 across the Middle East and North Africa, pushing its newest image model into everyday tools rather than keeping it inside the exclusive (and expensive) Pro tier.
The rollout spans the Google Gemini desktop and mobile apps, and extends to Google Search through Lens and AI Mode. Developers can also test it in preview via AI Studio and the Gemini API.
Nano Banana 2 runs on Gemini Flash, Google’s fast inference layer. The focus is speed, but also control. Users can export visuals from 512px up to 4K, adjusting aspect ratios for everything from vertical social posts to widescreen displays.
The model maintains character likeness across up to five figures and preserves fidelity for as many as 14 objects within a single workflow. This enables visual continuity across scenes, iterations, or edits — supporting projects like short films, storyboards, and multi-scene narratives. Text rendering has also been improved, delivering legible typography in mockups and greeting cards, with built-in translation and localization directly within images.
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Under the hood, the system taps Gemini’s broader knowledge base and pulls in real-time information and imagery from web search to render specific subjects more accurately. Lighting and fine detail have been upgraded, without slowing output.
By embedding the model inside Gemini and Search, Google is normalizing advanced image generation for a mass audience. In MENA, where startups and marketing teams are leaning heavily on AI to scale content across languages and borders, that shift lands at a practical moment.
The move also folds creative tooling deeper into search itself, so that image generation is no longer a separate workflow. It now sits right next to the query box.
Nano Banana 2 Arrives In MENA For Google Gemini Users
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