Walk into Emirates Towers in Dubai today and you’re in the city’s innovation nerve centre, with Dubai Future Foundation and global start-up incubator and seed fund 1776 having taken up residence on the ground floor.
Headquartered in Washington DC, 1776 is the first international incubator to establish an official presence in the region, after partnering with Dubai Future Foundation.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, formally opened 1776’s new Dubai campus last month, its second outside Washington: the other is in the technology heartland of San Francisco.
“At 1776, we focus on start-ups solving the complex challenges of the future, in areas like education, health, energy, food, smart cities, mobility, transport, financial services and security – areas of essential human need,” says co-founder and co-chief executive Evan Burfield. “We want to digitise big, messy, hard sectors. We want to create a global marketplace.”
The incubator nurtures start-ups to help scale their business and build products, he says, while also acting as a middle man to large, global institutions like healthcare companies, banks, big energy firms and municipal governments. Mr Burfield talks about connecting a San Francisco drone company to local utilities provider Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) – or just helping a Dubai start-up to create its investor pitch.
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1776 – named for the year the American declaration of independence was signed – has had more than 700 start-ups go through its incubator programme since its 2013 launch; these have collectively raised more than US$400 million in capital. There just over 400 active members at present.
Dubai “rocketed to the top of the list” when choosing an international location for a new campus, Mr Burfield says, thanks to its smart city initiative.
“We found more urgency in Dubai for turning great ideas into reality than in any other city,” he says. “Dubai can become a global hub for start-ups tackling important global challenges. Sheikh Mohammed understands that the future of the Dubai economy lies in innovation and entrepreneurship.”
With Dubai’s population growing an average of 6.5 per cent annually over the past two decades, according to the Dubai Statistics Centre, the foundation is now leading the city’s drive to create drones, robots, 3D printing and driverless cars.
This is all part of the emirate’s bid to be the world’s most sustainable smart city by 2050, with a quarter of its buildings being 3D-printed and three-quarters of Dubai’s energy coming from solar panels.
As part of the memorandum of understanding it signed with the foundation, 1776 will help to bring start-ups to Dubai and get them working with local institutions on pilot schemes and support existing accelerator and incubator programmes regionally.
The first such partnership is with UK-Lebanese Tech Hub, whose start-ups looking for a first point of entry into the GCC will make the 1776 Dubai campus their home.
1776 will also advise the Dubai Government how best to promote innovation and entrepreneurship within key sectors of the economy.
The incubator is “aligned” with Dubai Future Foundation, says its chief executive, Saif Al Aleeli, and “shares a similar vision on innovations in transportation, health care, education and energy”.
More than 3,000 start-ups from 65 cities have taken part in 1776’s annual Challenge Cup: last year Dubai-based MUrgency was the winner.
The global medical emergency app is now running two pilot schemes, in the Indian state of Punjab and in Mexico City.
MUrgency is a sort of Uber for ambulances, explains San Francisco-based founder and chief executive Shaffi Mather, for the 90 per cent of the world’s population that does not have access to reliable emergency responses. It signs partnerships with hospitals then puts contact details for emergency rooms, doctors, nurses, paramedics and even CPR resuscitation-trained individuals on to its cloud platform.
Mr Mather previously set up Indian ambulance company Ziqitza Healthcare in 2004 after a personal drama; his mother was choking to death and his father had to drive her to hospital because they could not call an ambulance. It is now the largest in the developing world, Mr Mather says, with more than 2,000 ambulances dealing with up to 10,000 patients a day. It operates in 17 states in India as well as Dubai, where it has 12 ambulances and 60 staff.
As part of Dubai’s Innovation Week this month. MUrgency is working with Dubai Ambulance Service to reduce its emergency response time from an average eight to 12 minutes to under four.
“1776 has given us wide exposure, particularly in the US tech community,” Mr Mather says. “We had raised US$2.1 million in seed funding from the US, Europe and Asia before 1776 but now we are hoping to raise the next round.”
1776 is also working on an Innovation Week initiative with Dewa; the Dewa Future Utility Cup will involve international start-ups transforming the power industry competing to win a contract with the UAE utility provider.
Other 1776 members include Berlin-based Plugsurfing, a mobile app which allows drivers of electric cars to find charging stations and San Francisco-based HandUp, an online platform matching donors to homeless people to directly fund rent and medical care.
“We want to create super-vibrant smart cities, things that transform society,” enthuses Mr Burfield. A sort of “global mesh” of start-ups, he adds – but “in a curated way”.
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