News
Google Cloud Backs DXB Female Founders Event Series
Hosted at Google Cloud’s Dubai office, the series provides female entrepreneurs in the UAE with mentorship, skills, and networking opportunities.
The DXB Female Founders (DFF) monthly event series — an initiative supporting women entrepreneurs in the UAE — has secured sponsorship from Google Cloud. Hosted at Google Cloud’s Dubai office, the series will offer female founders a space to connect, learn, and develop critical business skills.
Kicking off today, the DFF series will feature monthly events, each built around a unique theme. Attendees can expect hands-on workshops, expert-led discussions, and real-life founder stories designed to provide actionable insights for aspiring and established entrepreneurs.
The first event focuses on Founder Stories, featuring Saba Yussouf, General Partner of Nettle Ventures. Saba, who sold her first business at 24 for £2 million and now leads a $60 million biotech company, will offer first-hand advice on investor readiness, key funding strategies, and what investors seek in a startup.
Adding to the lineup, Marisa Peer — celebrity therapist and best-selling author of I Am Enough — will deliver a session on overcoming self-doubt, building confidence, and achieving business success. With experience coaching top athletes, executives, and high-profile individuals, Marisa’s insights will be invaluable for founders looking to break mental barriers and reach their full potential.
The series will also welcome Nacho Floristan, Director of Generative AI Solutions Architecture at Google Cloud, alongside other accomplished female founders who will share their entrepreneurial journeys.
Faranak Farahmand Pour, Director of Global Strategic Initiatives at Google Cloud, highlighted the impact of this initiative: “Through our support of the DXB Female Founders event series, we aim to help unlock the immense potential of female talent in this region and contribute to the UAE’s ambitious goals for economic growth and technological advancement”.
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Nicki Bedford, Founder & CEO of DXB Female Founders, echoed the sentiment: “DXB Female Founders is committed to equipping women entrepreneurs with the tools, knowledge, and networks they need to thrive. We’re incredibly grateful for Google Cloud’s sponsorship, which allows us to reach more women and connect them with world-class expertise”.
By offering practical skills, fostering meaningful connections, and providing access to top-tier mentors, the initiative aims to contribute to the UAE’s vision of technological progress, economic diversification, and a thriving innovation culture.
For more details about the initiative or to register for upcoming DXB events, head to the official website.
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.
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.
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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.
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