Abu Dhabi: The Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) hosted its first in-person ‘Opportunities Fair’ to connect MBZUAI graduate students with employers from various industries and sectors.
Companies such as Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala), DP World, Du Telecom, Etisalat, G42, Hewlett Packard, McKinsey & Company, Careem, and more, took part in an exhibition and set of activities designed to effectively connect with the university’s AI graduate talent.
Short workshops on personal branding, understanding the UAE job market, and career development, were also facilitated by LinkedIn, Michael Page, and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB).
Exclusive access
The event, which was held on the university’s Masdar City campus, gave Master’s and PhD students exclusive access to prominent employers. Graduating students are actively applying for positions across a range of sectors as they look forward to the university’s first graduation in December. The wider student body networked with companies looking to hire AI talent for internship opportunities and took part in career development workshops.
“We pride ourselves in the quality of our students, faculty, and staff. And the quality shows in the number of organisations that participated in the fair and who have already taken on our students as employees and interns,” MBZUAI Provost Professor Fakhri Karray said as he addressed fair attendees.
“We will begin graduating students this Fall, and we look forward to many more Opportunities Fairs where students and employers benefit from expanding their network and employability and sharing knowledge,” he added.
MBZUAI ranks 24 globally in its areas of focus — artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing — putting the university ahead of renowned research universities such as the University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, and the University of Toronto in North America; Imperial College London, EPFL, and the Max Planck Institute in Europe, among others.
Open dialogue
“It was indeed a great opportunity for us to take part in the MBZUAI Opportunities Fair and have an open dialogue with a diverse pool of students who are very passionate about their specialisations within the AI field,” said Abeer Al Taher, talent acquisition and Emiratisation manager at DP World.
“During the Fair, we also had a fruitful talk with the MBZUAI management about the future of AI and its applications, and the potential collaboration between the academia and industry sectors to support the R&D efforts and benefit from the massive portfolio of MBZUAI’s faculty members who come from across the world. The university has positioned itself as a leading institution globally in a short span of time, which reflects the calibre of its students and encourages us to explore their professional potential. We look forward to the future achievements of MBZUAI’s students,” she added.
New students
MBZUAI recently welcomed 127 new students as part of its fall 2022 orientation ceremonies. New joiners included 22 doctoral and 105 master’s students, a class that included 30 UAE nationals. The university’s student population now stands at over 250 graduate students.
The university seeks to empower a new generation of Al leaders through exceptional education, and a unique model of academia focused on AI research and applications alongside academic excellence. Almost three years after its establishment, MBZUAI is recognised for its eminent faculty and research, who have led or co-led a remarkable number of top global conferences in 2022 including the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Causal Learning and Reasoning (CLeaR 2022), and the conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI).
