Dubai: Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, on Wednesday jointly hosted the Middle East finals of Create@Alibaba Cloud Start-up Contest (CACSC) at the Dubai Technology Entrepreneur Centre (DTEC).
DTEC is DSOA’s wholly owned largest-of-its-kind technology incubation centre in the region.
The Dubai session drew the participation of 10 regional technology start-ups spanning multimedia, gaming, e-commerce, online-to-offline, social media, and internet of Things (IoT).
Marhabababy.com, founded by Pieter Sleeboom and Evelyn Sleeboom, was selected as the winner of the regional finals and invited to compete in the world final in China later this year.
Dubai was chosen to host the regional session of CACSC due to its leading status and the significant advancements achieved by enterprises in the city in the cloud computing domain.
Shahla Ahmad Abdul Razak, Deputy CEO of DSOA, said, “DSOA remains committed to supporting the local technology entrepreneurship landscape and our collaboration in this innovative contest for start-ups accurately reflects our efforts in this domain.
Ideal environment
“Since establishment, he said that DTEC has enhanced the status of entrepreneurship in the UAE and the wider region through providing an ideal environment for start-ups and tech-enterprises. We were delighted to work closely with Alibaba Cloud on this initiative and provide entrepreneurs with a great opportunity to network and access global resources.”
“We see great potential for the technology sector in the Middle East region. Local start-ups and entrepreneurs are a critical component in driving market growth. Alibaba Cloud supports business of all sizes through empowering global customers with cloud infrastructure and intelligence,” said Sicheng Yu, Vice-President of Alibaba Group and General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Global.
