UAE: Meet the tech entrepreneur who wants to turn Kerala’s Malappuram into Dubai

UAE: Meet the tech entrepreneur who wants to turn Kerala’s Malappuram into Dubai

The Indian national draws motivation from the remarkable vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Published: Sat 15 Oct 2022, 8:00 AM Last updated: Sat 15 Oct 2022, 8:13 AM

A 31-year-old tech-savvy entrepreneur from Kerala seeks to take a leaf out of Dubai’s incredible growth story and deploy such changes in his native place of Malappuram district.

Umer Abdussalam, founder and CEO of the Edapt learning app, has been always enamoured by the way the UAE leadership transformed Dubai from a barren desert into an innovative world-class city.

“By turning my native place of Malappuram into Dubai, I don’t mean recreating another Burj Khalifa, a Museum of the Future or a digital twin of Dubai there, but I aim to improve the lives of the people in Malappuram by empowering them with the right skill sets for the new digital age just like you see it here. I want to help youngsters back home bag high-paying jobs in future,” Abdussalam said on the sidelines of Gitex Global 2022.

“I have been coming to Gitex for the past six years. Being here, I get inspired by innovators and tech pioneers. The stalls feature technologies like artificial intelligence, 3D printing, blockchain and others