Past event summary

DANIEL SOLOMON
CEO & DELIVERY ADVISOR

EROE

Daniel Solomon is the CEO and Delivery Advisor of EROE, a business and digital transformation agency with global operations in Dubai & San Francisco.

As a seasoned professional, Daniel is known for driving growth and the employment of strategies that are guaranteeing the success of project delivery.  

Before his role at EROE, Daniel built an impressive track record of project deliveries in positions such as Project Director at Reality State Interactive a start-up building Augmented Reality software and project manager at Publicis.Sapient.  

Daniel earned an MBA from the University of Liverpool and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology from Middlesex University.  

Daniel’s expertise blends leadership, people’s culture, technical skills and practical case studies aimed to help intelligent businesses to grow and change the way world works.

Together with a team of experts at EROE, the consulting agency became the business transformation ally for global partners such as Coca Cola, Lexus, LNG, Virgin Mobile, Tenaris, Toyota, PwC, Publicis.Sapient and numerous others.

MELDA AKIN

TECH ENTREPRENEUR AND FOUNDER

DIMENSION14

Melda Akin is the founder of Dimension14, Decision- Making as a Service, an AI and optimization company.

Before launching Dimension14, she studied BSc Computer Engineering, and MSc in Intelligent Engineering Systems and worked as a software developer, system analyst, lecturer, project manager and director at international tech companies. Following a successful career, she was selected among 200 candidates as one of the best 8 female-founded start-ups in the Middle East and Africa region. Awarded by Standard Chartered Bank, selected as one of the best 7 women in tech entrepreneur in Turkey by Microsoft. Named as one of the top 100 Women Founders in Turkey according to their turnover. She collaborated with the Cyber Defense and Ministry of Information Technology of the KSA about AI and machine learning training as the first woman in the world to organize this training for women in the region volunteerly.

Melda and her team help companies to solve their hardest decision-making problems, like scheduling, optimization and forecasting.

She enjoys sculpturing as a hobby, and being invited to the art exhibitions around the world.

MUHAMMED MEKKI

FOUNDING PARTNER

ASTROLABS

Muhammed is a Founding Partner at AstroLabs, a capability building company developing the digital ecosystem of the MENA region. AstroLabs Academy has trained thousands of alumni and has partnered with the largest organizations in the region to enable their digital transformations.  In addition, AstroLabs has supported hundreds of global ventures and entrepreneurs to establish themselves locally at their network of collaborative coworking communities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Prior to AstroLabs, Muhammed co-founded Namshi, now one of the largest eCommerce companies in the MENA region. He is a former McKinsey & Company consultant and has served on the advisory boards of several startups. Muhammed received an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and completed his undergraduate studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

RAVI BHUSARI

CO-FOUNDER & CEO

DUPLAYS

Ravi co-founded Duplays with his friend and now business partner, Derv Rao, in 2007, which grew to become the UAE's largest adult sport & social club platform with 100,000+ registered members.

Recently, Ravi has focused his efforts on building 'pay-to-play' indoor community sports facilities in the region with a particular focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, helping build the Middle East's sports infrastructure to enable more participatory sport across all ages, income brackets, ethnicities, and skill levels. 

In 2019, he founded ‘nook’, the region’s first and only co-working space dedicated to enabling other sports + wellness entrepreneurs to set up their own Dubai-based DMCC license and grow their businesses.

Prior to starting Duplays, Ravi was employed as a Development Advisory Manager in Colliers International’s real estate practice and as a consultant at Investment Boutique LLC, both based in Dubai. Before moving to Dubai, he worked as a Project Engineer at Halliburton in Canada.

Ravi holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University and an MBA from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Ravi was selected as an Endeavor entrepreneur in 2013 and DUPLAYS was selected as a Dubai SME100 in 2015.