Dubai, November 18-19, 2025 – Following its remarkable success in May 2025, /function1 returns with a larger and more dynamic edition of the AI Conference & Exhibition. The vision behind the brand was always clear: to create a global, in-person hub where AI founders could share groundbreaking ideas. That debut edition earned widespread recognition both regionally and internationally, featuring more than 40 speakers, over 10 hours of insightful discussions, and the UAE’s first large-scale AI hackathon.
This Fall, /function1 builds on that momentum, elevating its young but powerful legacy to new heights. It now stands as the defining year-end AI conference of 2025, and the ultimate destination where the AI world gathers.
Here’s What’s Coming
- 2 days and 3 stages of a selective agenda, designed to highlight the hottest AI trends and address the most pressing industry issues. Across three stages, /function1 will explore how Artificial Intelligence changes the rules in finance and cybersecurity, smart cities and biometrics, healthcare and medical diagnostics, energy and sustainability, and more. Apart from that, the conference program will raise complex, futuristic, and even philosophical questions to find out if the future promised by sci-fi is as close as we think.
- 10,000+ attendees, reflecting the wide diversity of the AI-native community: developers and founders, investors and scientists, students and regulators.
- Founders Program: uniting 5,000+ AI Startups, this special part of /function1 is designed to spotlight the most promising AI startup founders, providing them with visibility, connections, and strategic opportunities. AI-driven founders from all around the globe have already applied for participation, and 4,000 of them are about to attend /function1, including companies like AVM, Ignite AI, and Antal. If you want to learn more about the Founders Program, the current lineup of founders, and submit your application, visit the /function1 website [insert link: https://fnctn1.com/founders].
- The Largest Hackathon in the Middle East: joining forces with LabLab and NativelyAI, /function1 returns with the next edition of AI Genesis [insert link: https://fnctn1.com/ai_genesis_hackathon], a worldwide hybrid hackathon. This time, the hackathon is bringing together 4000+ talented developers for a week-long online challenge, culminating in an exciting on-stage finale at /function1 in November.
- AI Futures Lab, a unique educational program and student pitch challenge, driven by a goal of empowering the UAE’s youth to solve pressing global challenges with Artificial Intelligence. This November, /function1 unites students from top UAE universities to provide them guidance from top-notch industry & academia mentors, and encourage them to create ambitious AI solutions and showcase them in front of 10,000+ conference attendees, with media coverage and prizes. Click here [insert link: https://fnctn1.com/ai_futures_lab] to find out the details and apply as a student, recent graduate, or university representative.
Introducing the Speakers
This month /function1 will feature the world-class lineup of 150+ handpicked voices from the leading AI companies, Academia, Government, and Corporations – and we’re proud to announce the first batch:
- Dr. Vivek Lall – Chief Executive of General Atomics Global Corporation
- Ron Levin – Managing Partner, Alumni Ventures
- Ahmed Mostafa – Regional AI Adoption Lead at NVIDIA
- Omnia Hame – Director of International Ventures, Seed Group & The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum
- Priyanka Vijayan – Managing Director, Seed Ventures
- Bimal Mehta – Head of AI/ML Engineering, Vanguard
- Jeanie Fang – Director, Data & AI Management, Crunchbase
- Yuki Shirato – Managing Director, Techstars
- Ankit Lathigara – AVP Client Services Portfolio Management, Nasdaq
- Tiago Henriques – Head of AI/ML Technology Practice, Google Cloud EMEA
- Lydia Andresen – Executive Director of AI Research at Invisible Technologies
- Faisal Iqbal – Head of Innovation Programs, Public Sector, MEA, AWS
- Casper Guldager – Director, KPMG NewTech
- Hamad Odhabi – Vice Chancellor, Abu Dhabi University
Introducing the Sponsors
- Gemini is Google’s next-generation multimodal AI model that understands and reasons across text, images, code, video, and audio. It enables you to build intelligent, context-aware, and agentic applications that can analyze information, make decisions, and act on them.
- AppliedAI is redefining the future of work through AI. Its flagship platform, Opus, is the first ABPX platform that delivers enterprise-grade, human-supervised automation for organizations of all sizes. By uniting intelligence, compliance, and adaptability in one system, AppliedAI closes the gap between experimentation and execution. The result is practical, reliable, and scalable automation that drives measurable impact in the real world.
- AI/ML API, a platform providing access to 200 AI models with low latency and high scalability for advanced machine learning.
Welcoming the World-Class Partners
- NVIDIA, the world leader in AI computing infrastructure and ecosystem partner of /function1;
- Seed Ventures, part of Seed Group – a global investment company and a launchpad for startups and scaleups, powered by the Dubai Royal Family office;
- Abu Dhabi University, the UAE’s leading private university and a research facility, designed to meet the demands of the UAE economy;
- American University in the Emirates – a private university in Dubai, offering a world-class campus and highly-acclaimed educational programs with an American-style curriculum;
- Plekhanov University in Dubai – an international branch of Russia’s oldest university dedicated to Economics and Business;
Dubai Business Events – an official resource of The Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, and the ultimate insider in the region’s business event world.
