News

UAE Lets Talented Coders Apply For 100,000 Golden Visas

If the initiative turns out to be successful, other forward-thinking countries could decide to attract talent using similar methods.

Published

5 years ago

July 17, 2021

Joanna Melki

uae lets talented coders apply for 100,000 golden visas

Unsplash

The UAE would like to become the region’s dominant tech hub, and that’s possible only if the country itself is home to successful tech businesses contributing to its digital economy. To achieve its goal, the country has just launched an ambitious initiative that lets talented coders from around the world apply for 100,000 golden visas.

Called the National Programme for Coders, the new initiative was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in cooperation with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco, IBM, HPE, LinkedIn, Nvidia, and Facebook.

“The goal is to train and attract 100,000 programmers and create 1,000 major digital companies within five years,” said Sheikh Mohammed. “The National Programme for Programmers is a new step to build our digital economy,” he added.

To be eligible, applicants must be:

Distinguished experts and talents who achieved success in various areas of coding.
Those who work for pioneering international technological firms.
Graduates of software engineering, computer sciences, hardware engineering, information technology, artificial intelligence, data science, big data, and electrical engineering.

The National Programme for Coders is available to both residents and non-residents of the UAE. All coders who meet the above-listed criteria can apply through The Office of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE government or the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship.

Also Read: Amazon Web Services Announces Plans To Open Data Center In UAE

It will certainly be interesting to see how many talented coders will be attracted by the opportunity to get one of thousands of UAE golden visas considering that we’re in the middle of not only a major global tech talent shortage, but also a pandemic.

If the initiative turns out to be successful, then other forward-thinking countries could decide to attract talent using similar methods, knowing that digital transformation is essential for shaping the future we seek for the next generations.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.