Hub71 today announced the rolling out of a new Corporate Engagement Programme and strategy to provide corporates with access to high growth startups transforming their sectors and enabling startups with access to major corporates as customers during the Technology Innovation Pioneers, TIP, Summit 2020 at New York University Abu Dhabi.

The innovation team of the corporate partners will immerse into the ecosystem of the newly launched WeWork x Hub71 community located in the award-winning International Financial Centre - Abu Dhabi Global Market.

The programme acts as a bridge between the major corporates and the startups that are looking to transform industries and address major problems and pain points in their industries. Through this programme, Hub71 aims to reinforce the importance of synergistic co-creation between businesses and startups by providing founders with access to local market insights, expertise, a platform to test their ‘proof of concept’ and to eventually design market-fit products. The programme allows corporates to create partnerships with agile startups to innovate on their business models by creating pilots and opportunities for collaboration.

Hub71 kicked off the programme by signing two MoUs with Aldar and ADCB. Global startups looking to succeed in this market will benefit from the scale, experience, and regional market knowledge of these corporate leaders. Corporates will simultaneously gain unmatched access to Hub71’s global cache of startups, VCs and accelerator programmes.

Ibrahim Ajami, Head of Ventures - Mubadala Capital and Acting CEO of Hub71, said, "Technology continues to transform the corporate landscape and we are seeing major corporations digitize their businesses like never before. The Hub71 Corporate Engagement Programme creates a platform for corporates and startups to engage, address challenges, adopt new products and services, and test new business models. Corporations also play a major role in acquiring startups to continue to grow their businesses and this can serve as an opportunity for corporates to identify key targets for their strategic agendas. Aldar and ADCB are two leaders in our region that recognize the importance of working very closely with technology startups and looked to Hub71 as a partner to do this."

As part of the long-term strategic commitment, Aldar will look to establish a physical presence at WeWork x Hub71 for its innovation team. The team will share incentive programmes for property technology ("PropTech") startups, provide mentorship, host innovation workshops, corporate events and pitch days. Aldar will also explore the opportunity to launch a PropTech innovation test bed to pilot new products and services in addition to a global PropTech challenge alongside Hub71.

Greg Fewer, Chief Financial & Sustainability Officer, Aldar, said, "Our MoU with Hub71 will help the UAE attract global and regional PropTech talent, which will enable us to take a more structured approach to investing in, and innovating alongside, entrepreneurs. This will help us become closer to our customers, identify more sustainable approaches to how we do business, and ultimately drive growth for us, and our partners."

By becoming a founding partner of Hub71, ADCB demonstrates its commitment to delivering its digital agenda in an impactful way. The partnership provides ADCB with the opportunity to collaborate with an ecosystem of successful FinTech startups who will drive innovation for the benefit of its customers. ADCB will have extensive opportunities to test new and different FinTech propositions and to accelerate its own digital transformation. ADCB is committed to playing an active part in the ecosystem, providing start-ups with support and local market insights.

Mohammed Al Jayyash, Acting Group Chief Operating Officer for ADCB, commented, "The partnership demonstrates our ongoing support of the 2021 vision and our commitment to the economic growth of the country. ADCB will play a pivotal role at the centre of an expanded and innovative ecosystem, with access to the best technology startups through Hub71."

Hub71 is a flagship initiative of the AED50 billion economic accelerator programme ‘Ghadan 21’ and was launched in early 2019 to provide Abu Dhabi with a new global tech ecosystem. It is a key enabler to help startups succeed in the region, while working alongside strategic partners such as Mubadala, Softbank Vision Fund, Abu Dhabi Global Market and Microsoft.

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