When he launched Lovin Dubai in 2015, there was no established playbook for creating a digital first, independent media business that could build a large audience and turn that attention into a sustainable commercial operation.

There was an idea, a small team and a belief that Dubai’s audience was ready for something different.

The journey from that beginning to Augustus Media, Lovin and Smashi was the subject of Fitzgerald’s fireside conversation at Tech Innovation Forum 2026, where the Founder and CEO of Augustus Media spoke with Wissam Younane, CEO of BNC Media Group.

It was a conversation about media, but more importantly, it was a conversation about persistence.

Starting With Almost Nothing

The Lovin Dubai story is now familiar across the region, but its early circumstances are worth remembering.

When the platform went live in September 2015, Fitzgerald and his team did not have the scale associated with Augustus Media today. There were no millions of followers, no extensive regional network and no established media reputation.

According to Fitzgerald’s own account of those early days, Lovin Dubai launched with one full time employee, no page views, no followers and little fanfare. Even the person originally hired as an editor withdrew shortly before launch because of a non compete issue.

It was hardly the conventional starting point for a media company.

Yet that was precisely where the opportunity existed.

Fitzgerald had spent years working in advertising and media before arriving in Dubai, including experience in Ireland, England and the UAE. He had seen how audiences were changing and how social platforms were altering the relationship between publishers and consumers.

The opportunity was not simply to create another publication.

It was to build a media brand around the way people were already consuming information.

Learning What Dubai Wanted to Read

The success of Lovin Dubai was not built around publishing more content for the sake of publishing more content.

It was about understanding the city.

Local stories, people, restaurants, events, personalities, businesses and the everyday experiences of living in Dubai became part of the editorial mix.

The result was a publication that felt closer to the rhythm of the city than a traditional newspaper.

That relationship with the audience became the foundation of the business.

Within seven years, Augustus Media reported that Lovin had expanded into 15 cities and grown to more than six million followers, while the company had built teams and studios across the region.

But growth did not come without risk.

The company encountered legal disputes, threats and difficult commercial periods. Fitzgerald has previously described the early years as a period when the business was not certain to survive.

Those experiences matter because they provide context for what Augustus Media eventually became.

The polished media operation came later.

First came persistence.

The Decision to Build Something Bigger

Lovin Dubai could have remained the entire business.

Instead, Fitzgerald began asking a more ambitious question.

Could the company build a broader media ecosystem around the audience and capabilities it had developed?

That question eventually led to the creation of Augustus Media and the development of new brands and formats.

Smashi became one of the most important examples.

Rather than simply replicating Lovin’s model, Smashi was created as a media brand focused on business, technology, sport and other specialist areas, with video and streaming at its core. Fitzgerald’s own account of the company’s development describes the decision to build a streaming service from scratch and move into areas that traditional publishers were not necessarily designed to serve.

That was another calculated risk.

Building a streaming platform requires considerably more than publishing articles on a website. It means investing in production, presenters, studios, technology, distribution and new commercial relationships.

But it also reflected a broader understanding of where media was going.

Audiences were moving between websites, social platforms, podcasts, video channels, connected television and streaming services.

A media company that wanted to remain relevant could not afford to think about itself as only a website.

Smashi and the Expansion of the Media Model

Smashi demonstrated how Fitzgerald’s approach evolved from a local digital publication into a broader content business.

The platform developed programming around business, technology and sport, while Augustus continued to experiment with formats and distribution.

The company later expanded its streaming ambitions further, including partnerships that have taken Lovin and Smashi content onto connected television platforms. In 2026, Augustus announced that Lovin Dubai would launch a FAST television channel on Samsung and LG, extending a digital first brand into the television environment.

Smashi has also expanded its sports proposition. In August 2026, Augustus announced a partnership with the UAE Football Association involving Smashi Sports and OTT streaming for the 2026 and 2027 season.

The significance is not simply that the company moved into television.

It is that a media company born from social and digital publishing continued to reinvent its distribution model rather than waiting for the market to dictate its future.

Taking the Risk of Remaining Independent

Perhaps the more interesting part of Fitzgerald’s story is the decision to build Augustus Media as an independent company.

Independent media is difficult anywhere.

It is particularly challenging in a market where large established organisations, global platforms and major advertisers compete for attention.

Fitzgerald has spoken publicly about wanting to build an independent media institution in the Arab world and proving that such a company could become a serious commercial business.

That ambition has required a different kind of discipline.

Instead of depending primarily on investment to create the appearance of scale, Augustus has increasingly built its business around advertising, content production, audience relationships and commercial partnerships.

The company’s latest published results illustrate how far that model has developed. Augustus reported $16.2 million in revenue for 2025, a 31.9 percent increase from the previous year, with $3.49 million in net profit. The company reported 17 million network followers and 140 employees across eight regional offices.

Those numbers provide an important measure of the transformation.

What started as one digital publication in Dubai has become a regional media company.

Persistence as a Competitive Advantage

There is a tendency to describe successful media companies through their viral stories, follower counts and headline partnerships.

Fitzgerald’s journey suggests another ingredient matters just as much.

Persistence.

Lovin Dubai survived periods when the business model was uncertain. Augustus continued to invest in content and people during difficult market conditions. The company expanded into new cities, developed new brands and continued experimenting with formats.

During the pandemic, when advertising markets came under severe pressure, Fitzgerald has described the decision to maintain the company’s editorial operation rather than dismantle it. His argument was straightforward: if the audience relationship survived, the commercial opportunity could return.

That philosophy has become central to the company.

Building From the Gulf Rather Than Looking In From Outside

There is also something significant about where the story was built.

Augustus Media was not a global media company that arrived in the Gulf with a ready made international model.

It was built in Dubai.

Lovin was developed around individual cities and their communities. Smashi was developed around regional interests. The company has continued expanding across markets including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and other parts of the region while maintaining its roots in the UAE.

That gives Fitzgerald’s story a relevance beyond the company itself.

It demonstrates that a media business can be created in the Gulf, understand the culture and behaviour of its audiences, build commercial scale and then expand outward.

A Media Company That Keeps Moving

The conversation between Fitzgerald and Younane therefore went beyond the success of Lovin Dubai.

It was really about what happens when an entrepreneur refuses to stop at the first successful idea.

Lovin created the audience.

Augustus created the company around that audience.

Smashi expanded the editorial and commercial proposition.

New platforms, cities, partnerships and formats followed.

Today, Augustus describes itself as an independent media company with a growing network of brands and formats across the region. Its 2025 results show that the business has reached a scale that would have been difficult to imagine when Lovin Dubai launched with one employee and virtually no audience.

For T&I News, Fitzgerald’s appearance at Tech Innovation Forum 2026 offered a particularly relevant story for anyone attempting to build media in the region.

The lesson is not simply that digital media can work.

It is that building a successful media company requires the willingness to take risks before the market validates the idea, the patience to survive the difficult years and the discipline to keep reinventing the business once the first idea succeeds.

Richard Fitzgerald did not simply build a media brand around Dubai.

He built a company that demonstrated that independent media could be conceived, financed, developed and scaled from the Gulf.

And perhaps the most important part of the story is that the experiment is still evolving.

The post Augustus Media founder innovates digital media and turned it into a growing regional business spanning content, streaming and sports first appeared on T&I News.

That journey was at the heart of Joelle Mardinian’s fireside conversation at Tech Innovation Forum 2026, where the Founder and CEO of Joelle Group spoke with Omar Hamdi, Chief Executive Officer of Pathos.

For an audience accustomed to seeing the finished product of entrepreneurship, Mardinian’s story offered something more useful: a look at the work that happened before the brand became a brand.

Her career has been built through several reinventions. She studied hospitality management in London before following her interest in makeup, eventually qualifying as a makeup artist. The early years were far from glamorous. Mardinian has spoken publicly about assisting without pay and offering her services in exchange for photographs that would help her build a professional portfolio. Eventually, that persistence led to work with Sony Records and its artists.

The lesson from those early years has remained visible throughout her career.

She has never presented success as something that arrived fully formed.

Starting With the Audience

Mardinian’s breakthrough came through television.

After moving to Dubai, she secured an opportunity with MBC and developed her own makeover programme. The show brought her into the homes of audiences across the Arab world and, importantly, created a relationship with viewers that would later become central to her business journey.

People began asking her where they could find the salons, treatments and products associated with the world they were seeing on screen.

For Mardinian, those questions represented more than fan interest. They revealed a market.

In 2008, she opened her first Maison de Joelle salon in Jumeirah. What followed was the development of a wider portfolio that included salons, Clinica Joelle and Joelle Paris.

The important point is that the businesses did not emerge separately from her public identity. They grew from a relationship that had already been established with an audience.

That distinction helps explain the longevity of the Joelle name.

The Work Behind the Image

There is an obvious visual element to the Joelle brand, but Mardinian’s career has never been only about appearances.

Her own account of building the business describes a period of juggling television, entrepreneurship, brand partnerships and family life, while taking on the financial risks involved in establishing her companies. She has also spoken about working extensively behind the scenes on her television production rather than simply appearing in front of the camera.

That work ethic became part of the story.

The public saw the television presenter. Behind that image was someone involved in production, business development, product creation and the day to day demands of running companies.

It is perhaps one reason her audience relationship became so important.

Staying Honest in an Influencer Economy

Mardinian has also been unusually direct about the responsibilities that come with having a large audience.

At a time when personal branding has become an industry of its own, she has repeatedly argued for being selective about what she puts her name behind.

In interviews, she has spoken critically about the way paid social media promotion can blur the line between genuine recommendation and advertising. Her position has been that a public figure needs to consider whether a product is something they genuinely trust before attaching their reputation to it.

That philosophy has influenced the way she approaches her own businesses.

Authenticity is a word that has become heavily used in marketing, but for Mardinian it has been closely connected to transparency. She has allowed audiences to see parts of her life and career that many public figures might prefer to keep away from the camera.

That willingness to show the person behind the brand has helped create a different kind of connection.

The audience is not simply being asked to buy something.

It is being invited into the story.

Beauty, But Also Confidence

There is another dimension to Mardinian’s career that became increasingly apparent through her television work.

The women who appeared on her programmes were not simply subjects for cosmetic transformation. Mardinian has described the experience as being about confidence and helping women feel differently about themselves. One account of her television career notes that she worked with hundreds of women, each arriving with very different personal concerns and expectations.

That experience gave her a perspective on beauty that extended beyond products.

It also gave her a direct understanding of her audience.

Instead of building a company around an abstract idea of what consumers might want, she had spent years listening to people talk about their concerns, insecurities and aspirations.

That feedback eventually became commercially useful.

It helped inform the development of products designed specifically with Middle Eastern hair and skin concerns in mind. Mardinian has previously explained that the idea behind Joelle Paris was partly driven by a perceived gap in products created specifically for the region rather than simply imported into it.

Reinvention as a Business Strategy

Mardinian’s journey also demonstrates that building a personal brand does not mean remaining in one profession.

She moved from makeup artistry to television, from television into physical businesses and from those businesses into products and a broader corporate structure.

Each stage built on the one before it.

The television career created visibility. The audience created trust. The trust created demand. The demand helped reveal commercial opportunities.

That progression is particularly relevant to today’s entrepreneurs, many of whom are attempting to turn personal visibility into sustainable businesses.

Mardinian’s experience suggests that visibility alone is not enough.

There has to be something behind it.

A Brand Built in Public

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Joelle story is that much of it has been built in public.

The audience has watched the career develop, the businesses expand and the person behind the name evolve. Mardinian has also been open about setbacks, pressure and the insecurities that can exist behind an apparently confident public persona.

That honesty has not always fitted neatly into the polished world of beauty.

But it may be precisely why it has mattered.

Her story is not one of overnight success. It is a story of years of work, repeated reinvention and a willingness to remain connected to the people who followed her from television into business.

More Than a Beauty Brand

The conversation with Omar Hamdi placed that journey within the broader themes of Tech Innovation Forum 2026, where entrepreneurs and business leaders were invited to discuss not only what they have built, but how they built it.

For Mardinian, the answer is deeply personal.

The Joelle Group grew from a career that began with makeup brushes and portfolio building, developed through television and eventually became a wider business spanning beauty, wellness and consumer products.

The technology may change. The platforms may change. The way audiences discover brands may change.

But the basic principle remains familiar.

Know your audience. Give them a reason to trust you. Work harder than the image suggests. And when the opportunity comes to turn that relationship into a business, make sure there is something real behind the name.

For T&I News, that was the more revealing side of Joelle Mardinian’s appearance at Tech Innovation Forum 2026.

Not simply the story of a beauty entrepreneur, but the story of a woman who spent years building an audience, listening to it and ultimately building a business around that relationship.

The post Joelle Mardinian: Building a Beauty Empire by Staying Close to Her Audience first appeared on T&I News.

Khan, CEO of Bayut and dubizzle and CEO of the UAE business of Dubizzle Group MENA, sat down with Wissam Younane, CEO of BNC Media Group, for a conversation that traced a remarkable chapter in the development of the UAE’s technology ecosystem.

The session was less about celebrating the size of the business today and more about understanding the journey that brought it there.

That journey began for Khan with a background in engineering and technology. After studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, he spent time in the United States working with technology companies including National Instruments and Silicon Laboratories. He later brought that technical and international experience back to the UAE, joining Bayut in 2014.

What followed was a period of significant transformation.

Building Bayut in a Changing Market

When Bayut was developing its position in the UAE property market, the opportunity was not simply to put property listings online. The larger challenge was to change how people searched for homes, how agents reached prospective customers and how information moved through the real estate market.

Over the following decade, Bayut developed from a homegrown Dubai technology business into a major digital property platform.

Khan’s tenure coincided with that transformation. Bayut increasingly moved beyond being a destination for property listings and began developing technology around the wider property search experience.

Tools such as TruCheck, TruEstimate and BayutGPT have subsequently become part of the company’s technology strategy, with the platform using data and artificial intelligence to address questions around property information, pricing and trust.

The significance of that development lies in what it says about the evolution of technology businesses in the UAE.

The first generation of digital platforms largely focused on putting existing services online. The next generation began using technology to change how those services actually worked.

Bayut’s story sits within that transition.

From a Property Platform to a Larger Digital Ecosystem

The next chapter became considerably bigger.

In 2020, Dubizzle Group merged with OLX Group’s businesses in key MENA markets. The transaction valued the combined business at $1 billion and created what has been described as the region’s first homegrown digital classifieds unicorn.

For Khan, the story therefore extends beyond Bayut itself.

The development of the wider Dubizzle Group created a technology ecosystem spanning property and other classified categories, with the company subsequently expanding its regional footprint through further acquisitions and investments.

The group’s own account of its development records a series of funding rounds, the 2020 acquisition of OLX Group MENA, further investment in 2022 and acquisitions including Drive Arabia, Hatla2ee and Property Monitor.

It is an unusual trajectory for a business that began with a very specific problem: making property discovery easier.

Technology With a Local Understanding

One of the interesting elements of Khan’s journey is the combination of international technology experience with an understanding of the UAE market.

That combination has become increasingly important as the country’s technology sector has matured.

Building for the UAE is not necessarily the same as taking a technology product developed elsewhere and introducing it to the market. Consumer behaviour, regulation, business relationships and the pace of economic development all influence how a digital product evolves.

Bayut’s growth illustrates how local knowledge can become an important part of technology development.

The company’s approach has increasingly focused on combining data, technology and an understanding of consumer behaviour. Dubizzle Group says data now sits at the centre of its commercial and technology operations, with its infrastructure handling billions of events each month. The group also established a dedicated artificial intelligence team in 2016.

For a business operating marketplaces, that data becomes particularly valuable because every search, listing and interaction provides another piece of information about how a market behaves.

The Human Story Behind the Platform

The fireside discussion also offered an opportunity to look beyond the familiar Bayut brand.

Technology companies are often described through their products, funding rounds, valuations and user numbers. Yet behind those metrics are years of decisions about hiring, technology, product development, competition and market timing.

Khan’s career provides a useful lens through which to view that process.

He joined Bayut at a comparatively early stage and remained closely associated with its development as the business grew. Today, his role encompasses both Bayut and dubizzle within the UAE, placing him at the centre of a much broader digital marketplace operation.

That progression mirrors the evolution of the company itself.

The engineer who entered the UAE technology sector through a property platform eventually found himself leading a business operating across multiple categories and markets.

A Story That Started in the UAE

There is also a wider significance to the Bayut story.

The UAE has spent years positioning itself as a place where technology companies can build, attract capital and expand into neighbouring markets. Stories such as Bayut demonstrate what can happen when a company develops alongside that ecosystem rather than simply entering it from outside.

The Dubizzle Group’s journey now extends well beyond its original property roots, but Bayut remains an important part of the story.

It represents the early idea, the local market understanding and the technology driven approach that helped establish the foundations for what came later.

For an audience at the Tech Innovation Forum 2026, that made Khan’s conversation particularly relevant.

The forum was designed around six fireside conversations intended to look beyond professional biographies and explore how businesses are actually built, how difficult decisions are made and what leaders learn along the way.

Khan’s session delivered precisely that perspective through the story of a business that grew alongside the UAE’s own digital transformation.

From a property search platform to a much broader technology ecosystem, the Bayut and Dubizzle journey is ultimately a story about scale, adaptation and the long process of turning a local idea into a regional technology business.

For T&I News, it was one of the day’s more compelling reminders that behind every major digital platform is a much longer story of people, decisions and persistence.

The post Haider Khan Reflects on a UAE Technology Success Story first appeared on T&I News.

Following the opening session, the discussion maintained the forum’s preference for conversation over conventional conference presentations. The exchange offered the audience an opportunity to hear from an experienced investor and business thinker whose career has extended across markets, industries and leadership environments.

The conversation with Bejjani reflecting on the broader forces shaping business, leadership and investment in an increasingly interconnected global economy. It was a useful distinction in a forum where artificial intelligence, investment and emerging technologies naturally form a significant part of the wider conversation.

Looking Beyond the Headlines

Bejjani’s positioning as an investor, author and global thought leader provided a broad lens through which to consider the changes taking place across business.

For investors and entrepreneurs, the current environment is characterised by rapid technological development, shifting consumer expectations and increasingly global competition. Yet technology itself is rarely the complete story.

Capital still follows opportunity, but identifying that opportunity requires an understanding of markets, people and timing. Likewise, leadership increasingly involves navigating uncertainty rather than simply managing established systems.

These themes gave the fireside format its relevance.

Instead of reducing entrepreneurship to a series of predictable milestones, the conversation opened up a wider discussion around how experienced leaders interpret change and make decisions when the direction of an industry is not always obvious.

That perspective is particularly relevant to the UAE and the wider MENA region, where the business landscape has evolved rapidly over the past decade.

Dubai, in particular, has developed into a meeting point for entrepreneurs, investors, multinational companies and emerging technology ventures from across the world. Conversations about global business therefore increasingly have a regional dimension and conversations about the region increasingly have a global one.

The Value of Experience

A recurring feature of good fireside conversations is that they allow experience to take centre stage.

There is a difference between discussing an industry from a distance and having spent years making decisions within it. Investors and business leaders bring a different perspective to questions of growth, risk and opportunity because their conclusions are generally shaped by exposure to real markets and real consequences.

Bejjani’s participation brought that experience into the room.

His background across investment and leadership also complemented the wider objectives of Tech Innovation Forum 2026, which has brought together business figures from different sectors for a series of intimate discussions rather than relying exclusively on conventional keynote presentations.

The format allows audiences to see different sides of business thinking from entrepreneurship and investment to technology, wealth and leadership.

A Moderator With a Newsroom Perspective

The role of the moderator was equally important.

Tamara Pupic, as Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Middle East, brought a distinctly editorial perspective to the discussion. The role of a strong moderator in this setting is not simply to introduce questions, but to create enough space for a meaningful exchange while keeping the conversation relevant to the audience.

That editorial instinct helped maintain the balance between the personal and the professional.

For business audiences, this matters. The most valuable conference conversations are often those that move beyond familiar talking points and allow speakers to explain how they approach complex questions rather than simply presenting polished conclusions.

The result was a discussion that felt closer to a newsroom interview than a traditional stage presentation direct, considered and conversational.

Innovation Is Bigger Than Technology

One of the broader observations emerging from the session was the importance of viewing innovation beyond the technology itself.

Artificial intelligence, automation, digital platforms and emerging financial technologies are transforming industries. But their impact ultimately depends on how organisations use them, how leaders respond to them and whether businesses can translate technological change into meaningful value.

For investors, that means looking beyond the immediate excitement surrounding new technologies.

For entrepreneurs, it means understanding that a strong idea still requires execution, positioning and access to the right networks.

And for established organisations, it means recognising that innovation can involve changing an existing business model just as much as introducing a new technology.

These questions sit at the heart of the broader business transformation taking place across the region.

From Regional Opportunity to Global Thinking

The UAE’s position within this changing landscape also provides an interesting backdrop to the discussion.

The country’s business ecosystem increasingly connects regional capital with international founders, technology companies and investors. That creates an environment where ideas can move quickly between markets and where entrepreneurs can build with a global audience in mind from the beginning.

For a global thought leader and investor such as Bejjani, this wider perspective adds relevance to conversations taking place in Dubai.

The challenge for businesses is no longer simply identifying whether a market is growing. It is understanding how different markets connect, where capital is moving, how technology is changing competitive dynamics and what kind of leadership is required to operate across those boundaries.

Another Conversation, Rather Than Another Presentation

The Bejjani-Pupic fireside chat continued what became a defining characteristic of Tech Innovation Forum 2026: allowing business leaders to speak in a more open and conversational environment.

As the forum moved through its programme, the session added another perspective to a day focused on business transformation, investment, technology and leadership.

For T&I News, its significance was not simply in the credentials of the speaker or the stature of the moderator. It was in the exchange itself.

In a business environment increasingly dominated by speed, headlines and technological disruption, there remains value in slowing the conversation down long enough to ask how experienced people actually think about the changes taking place around them.

That was the strength of this fireside session.

The post Alain Bejjani Brings a Global Perspective to the Fireside Stage first appeared on T&I News.

Held as the opening session of the one-day forum, the conversation set the tone for an event built around candid exchanges with entrepreneurs and business leaders rather than conventional conference speeches. The forum, organised by Entrepreneur Middle East, brings together a series of six fireside conversations exploring how businesses are built, how leaders navigate difficult decisions, and where opportunities are emerging across the region.

The opening discussion was frank, candid and engaging, moving beyond the polished language that often accompanies conversations about entrepreneurship. Instead, the exchange reflected the realities of building businesses in a market where reputation, relationships, timing and the ability to adapt can be as important as the original business idea.

Breidy, whose career spans media, leadership and real estate, brought a perspective shaped by more than two decades of experience. As the founder of BRDG House, his work centres on positioning, reputation and commercial growth areas that increasingly overlap as companies compete not only for customers and investment, but also for attention and trust.

Hojeige’s role as moderator added another layer to the discussion. With more than two decades of experience across engineering, sales, business development, media and corporate services, he approached the conversation from the perspective of someone familiar with both the commercial mechanics of building companies and the wider business ecosystem in the UAE.

Beyond the Entrepreneurial Success Story

What made the opening session particularly effective was its willingness to move beyond the conventional entrepreneurial success story.

Too often, discussions about business leadership are reduced to milestones: companies founded, markets entered, capital raised and revenues generated. The more useful conversations tend to sit somewhere underneath those achievements: the decisions that had to be made, the risks that were taken, the assumptions that changed and the relationships that helped shape the journey.

That was the character of the opening fireside chat.

Rather than treating entrepreneurship as a linear journey, the discussion reflected the more complicated reality of building and sustaining businesses in a fast-moving market. It also highlighted the increasing importance of personal and corporate reputation in an economy where founders and companies operate in highly connected networks.

The idea of trust was particularly relevant. The Tech Innovation Forum’s stated objective is to give audiences access not simply to professional biographies, but to the people behind the companies and headlines including their motivations, decisions, mistakes, beliefs and ambitions.

That approach was evident from the outset.

Return on Intention, the new ROI

The session also demonstrated why the fireside-chat format remains useful.

Unlike a traditional keynote, where an audience is largely presented with a finished narrative, a good fireside conversation leaves room for nuance. The moderator can challenge assumptions, follow an unexpected point and allow the discussion to develop naturally.

That dynamic was apparent between Breidy and Hojeige.

For an audience made up of entrepreneurs, executives, investors and professionals operating across the region, the value was less about receiving a formula for success and more about hearing how experienced business leaders think about the realities of the market.

It is a distinction worth making. The UAE’s business environment is often discussed through the language of growth, innovation and opportunity. Those themes are important, but businesses are ultimately built through decisions made under imperfect conditions.

The opening session brought some of that reality into the room.

Setting the Tone for the Forum

The choice of Breidy and Hojeige for the first conversation also reflected the broader character of Tech Innovation Forum 2026.

The programme moves through a series of intimate conversations with figures from entrepreneurship, technology, media, investment and consumer business. Among the day’s speakers are Alain Bejjani, Haider Khan, Joelle Mardinian, Richard Fitzgerald, Ramesh Murthy, Viktor Uzunov and Naeem Hussain, alongside Breidy.

Later in the programme, a panel titled “The Future of Wealth: How AI is Democratizing Investing” turns the focus toward technology, finance and changing approaches to investment.

But the opening conversation served an important purpose before those subjects took centre stage: it established that innovation is not only about technology.

It is also about people, positioning, leadership, relationships and the willingness to reconsider established ways of doing business.

Conversation Over Convention

That may ultimately be the most useful characteristic of the forum.

In a conference landscape crowded with panels, presentations and carefully prepared talking points, there is still considerable value in simply giving experienced people enough time to talk honestly about business.

The first session did exactly that.

Breidy and Hojeige’s exchange was conversational without becoming casual, candid without becoming performative, and commercially relevant without turning into a sales pitch. For an audience following the evolution of business across the UAE and wider MENA region, it offered a grounded opening to a day designed around access, ideas and meaningful exchange.

The Tech Innovation Forum 2026 is taking place on September 17 at Al Habtoor Palace Dubai, with six fireside conversations forming the core of the programme.

For T&I News, the opening session was a useful reminder that some of the most revealing conversations about innovation do not necessarily begin with technology. They begin with the people building companies, the decisions they make and the lessons that emerge along the way.

Tags: Tech Innovation Forum 2026, Entrepreneur Middle East, Wissam Breidy, BRDG House, George Hojeige, Virtugroup, Virtuzone, UAE Business, Dubai Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Innovation, MENA Business, Technology, T&I News

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