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UAE: At Gitex, young Emiratis showcase award-winning apps from e-commerce to F&B

More than 2,000 companies from UAE, GCC and beyond are exhibiting their new solutions at the event

Young Emiratis are showcasing their unique, innovative and award-winning technology solutions at Expand North Star as part of Gitex Global 2024 which runs until October 16 in Dubai.

From healthcare to e-commerce and F&B, young Emiratis are promising strong endeavours in the market at the world’s largest four-day start-up and investment event kicked off at Dubai Harbour on Sunday.

Ahmed Abdul Jawad, a student of the UAE University, will roll out the app 'Nutrivision' which allows users to know how many calories are there in their meal in order to balance their consumption.

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“Most nutrition tracking apps involve manual login. You have to write egg, meat and other food details which is a tedious process. We aim to use the power of AI to make this a more seamless and convenient experience. With our app, all the user has to do is to point the camera at the food and the app will detect the food on the plate. It will give details of how much calories, fat and proteins is there in the food,” said Abdul Jawad.

“There is a lot of market research involved in it. Firstly, we were researching what and how it has been done with other apps that are available in the market and how we can improve. Then we started with the development. Now we have MVP (minimum viable product or approved concept). We expect to launch it within a year because we want to ensure that it is accurate. We don’t want to rush it and launch a half-baked app,” Nutrivision founder told Khaleej Times in an interview on the sidelines of the event.

A large number of UAE start-ups backed by the Dubai Chamber and Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment For SME Development (Dubai SME) are taking part in the Expand North Star exhibition. More than 2,000 companies from UAE, GCC and other countries are currently exhibiting their new solutions at the event.

Another young Emirati, Fatima Alshaali decided to take on large e-commerce players through her award-winning 'Bareeq' platform, allowing UAE entrepreneurs to sell their products – including home-made ones – via her platform.

“UAE residents can sell any product such as abaya, clothes, fabric, perfumes to any hand-made products. In other e-commerce platforms, you won’t find many local home-based businesses. If you go to big platforms and search for locally-made abaya, you can’t find it there. It depends on the seller’s creativity. At the beginning, all products are acceptable, except food,” said Alshaali.

Alshaali, who has a background in IT, has developed multiple apps including Bareeq – which was awarded the most innovative app by Dubai Chamber.

She elaborated that Bareeq chooses sellers who have a licence issued by Dubai to ensure everyone's safety. The sellers will have to pay a transaction fee to Bareeq to sell their goods. There is also an optional monthly plan if someone is looking for premium features.

The app has tied up with a delivery company which will collect and deliver the order to the customer. “Initially, we focus on UAE businesses and then grow organically to GCC countries", Alshaali said.

She added that the app will have a soft launch in January 2025. “We have the MVP ready and are trying to connect with sellers in the next few months before the rollout. We have around 40 sellers and aim to reach 120 sellers when we have the soft launch to make sure that there is a good base for sellers.”

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