News

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.

Published

3 years ago

September 11, 2023

Nour Nasir

dubai student launches metaverse real estate summit

Rochester Institute Of Technology Dubai

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.

volston abreo rit dubai student

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.

Also Read: Egypt’s Flat6Labs Picks 24 Startups For Growth Track Program

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.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.