Dubai will host the second Middle East edition of Doers Summit 2026 from 25-26 November at Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) – the specialised economic zone for knowledge and innovation – and a member of Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ).
The summit aims to bring together founders, scaleups, investors, corporates and ecosystem leaders from around the world to unlock new business connections, drive strategic partnerships and facilitate market-entry opportunities. The summit will reinforce Dubai’s position as a global platform integrating innovation, capital and enterprise, connecting high-growth companies with regional and international growth opportunities.
Designed around the theme “Where Doers and Investors Build What’s Next”, the 2026 edition will feature high-growth technology companies and investment leaders from Europe, the GCC, Asia, Africa and emerging innovation hubs globally. Over two days, the event serves as a curated platform for companies exploring international expansion, investors seeking cross-border growth opportunities, and ecosystem leaders building new corridors between Dubai and the world’s most dynamic innovation markets.
Building on the success of the inaugural 2025 Middle East edition, which brought together more than 4,000 attendees from across 115 countries, including founders, investors and ecosystem leaders, the inaugural event featured keynotes, panel discussions, investor meetings, workshops and curated networking sessions focused on scaling innovation and cross-border collaboration.
The 2026 edition further expands its scope and ambition, returning as a global platform with a strengthened focus and a more dynamic format designed to turn dialogue into impact. It also aims to reinforce Dubai’s key role as a strategic gateway between Europe, the GCC, Asia and the Global South, while showcasing how Dubai Silicon Oasis and District IO enable technology companies to enter, scale and grow across regional markets.
The Doers Summit Dubai 2026 will go beyond highlighting the latest technology trends. It will focus instead on how technology is applied in real markets, how companies expand across regions, how partnerships are formed, and how founders and investors move from ideas to execution.
The summit will feature a restructured programme across two main stages, combined with interactive networking and engagement formats across the venue. Shifting away from passive conference formats, the summit will place greater emphasis on masterclasses, workshops, roundtables, curated networking sessions, ecosystem meetups, private discussions and experiential activations.
The content programme will balance inspirational future-focused conversations with practical discussions on company building, market entry and international growth. Core themes will include AI and frontier technologies, deeptech, climate and sustainability, longevity, fintech, digital infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, mobility, robotics and future industries.
The summit will also feature CarryON Dubai, an investor intelligence summit focused on the capital side of the ecosystem. CarryON Dubai will bring together institutional investors, family offices, venture funds, growth investors and selected founders for private and curated discussions around direct investment opportunities, strategic partnerships, cross-border expansion and long-term value creation.
Confirmed founders and operators include Ahmet Bahadir Ozdemir, Co-Founder of Airalo, the world’s largest eSIM marketplace, as well as the CEO of Crescent Enterprises and Chairman of Gulftainer, alongside Fares Akkad, Regional Director, MEA at Meta; Yousof Alsatom, Head of Bosch Innovation Campus at Bosch; and Peji Kanani, Regional Lead, Middle East & Africa at Carta — together with leaders from Miro, Gjirafa, and many others.
On the investor side, the event will host Abishek Nair, Head of Investment & New Ventures at Sharjah Asset Management; decision-makers from The Private Office of HH Sheikh Saeed Bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment and IFC; Pedro Santos Vieira, Managing Partner at 500 Global; Fridtjof Berge, Co-Founder of Antler; Raluca Ragab, Partner at Eurazeo; Rana Abdel Latif, Partner at Speedinvest; and Bilal Baloch, Partner at Shorooq Partners, among many others, with CAPSBOLD serving as the summit’s creative marketing partner.
Badr Buhannad, Director General of Dubai Silicon Oasis: “Following last year’s successful edition, which highlighted the growing importance of platforms that accelerate cross-border collaboration and knowledge exchange across innovation ecosystems, hosting Doers Summit Dubai 2026 reflects Dubai’s ongoing commitment to shaping a global ecosystem where ideas are translated into impact. It also reflects Dubai Silicon Oasis’ continued efforts to advance the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 by strengthening Dubai’s position as a global hub for innovation, investment and enterprise, and enabling high-impact collaboration between founders, investors and ecosystem leaders from key international markets.”
Stylianos Lambrou, Founder and CEO of The Doers Company: “Doers Summit is built around people who turn ideas into companies, technologies into products and conversations into partnerships. The 2026 Dubai edition will be more global, more interactive and more focused on practical outcomes. It will not only look at what is next in technology, but in a true Doers spirit, at how founders, investors and corporates can actually build it, fund it and scale it across markets.”
Doers Summit is an international platform connecting founders, startups, scaleups, investors, corporates and ecosystem leaders across regions. Formerly known as Reflect Festival, the summit built a strong presence across Europe and expanded to Dubai to support cross-border collaboration, venture building, and investment and technology growth.
Dubai Silicon Oasis is a specialised economic zone for knowledge and innovation, and a member of the Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ), which integrates and consolidates the products and services of three of Dubai’s leading economic zones including Dubai Airport Freezone, Dubai Silicon Oasis and Dubai CommerCity. DIEZ supports technology companies, entrepreneurs and innovators through an integrated ecosystem designed to enable business growth, talent development, entrepreneurship and future-focused industries.
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