The ninth edition of the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival (SEF 2026) has kicked off in the emirate, with sessions centered on financial clarity, data-backed strategy, and emerging technologies, signaling a strong shift toward practical, execution-driven outcomes.
The SEF 2026 event focus on informed decision-making and scalable growth, positioning founders as active builders. Masterclasses turned complex ideas into practical tools for immediate business use.
Workshops & sessions at SEF 2026
Money Mastery 101
Shahd Abdelhadi, Co-Founder of Women Who Invest, led Money Mastery 101: The Do’s and Don’ts of Saving and Investing, outlining core principles of saving, budgeting, and investing for both personal and business finances. The session framed financial clarity as essential to sustainable growth and disciplined capital management.
Participants were introduced to practical approaches for aligning short- and long-term goals, optimizing resource allocation, and balancing stability with growth. Abdelhadi also highlighted non-financial returns, such as skills development, operational resilience, strategic partnerships, and long-term value, as key measures of effective investment.
Geo Game-Changer
Isaias Thomas Biju, Head of UX/UI Design, Year 2 BSc Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University Dubai, led Geo Game-Changer: Turning Geolocation Data into Profit, showing how startups can leverage geospatial data as a strategic growth tool. The session introduced structured query language for analyzing location-based data, connecting global best practices with regional needs.
Biju noted that many businesses underuse location data, limiting insight into demand, coverage, and costs. He highlighted how location decisions impact supply chains and performance, citing retail as 21 percent of the global market and projecting growth from about $27 billion in 2026 to over $63 billion by 2034.
Artificial Intelligence Automation for Businesses
In the masterclass ‘Artificial Intelligence Automation for Businesses’, Philip Wride outlined how AI is being applied across industries to boost efficiency and customer engagement. Drawing on more than two decades of experience, including work with EA Sports, Disney, OSN, and Aramex, he translated technical concepts into practical use cases for non-technical founders.
Image credits: SEF | Cropped by GBN
The session covered AI agents managing automated conversations across Instagram, WhatsApp, and websites, acting as virtual receptionists, sales assistants, and support tools. Wride also introduced autonomous AI agents that execute tasks within business systems and demonstrated ‘vibe coding’, showing how conversational AI can build websites and applications using natural-language prompts.
SEF 2026 is set to welcome more than 14,000 participants from across the region and globally at the Sharjah Research, Technology, and Innovation Park (SPARK).
Organized by the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa), the SEF 2026 brings together entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and talent for a comprehensive program focused on building, scaling, and sustaining businesses amid evolving economic challenges.
