Al Anoud Al Hashimi is the founder and CEO of The Futurist Company, a project management company working in renewable energy, fin-tech and agri-tech. While the UAE has a thriving technology ecosystem, the country needs greater domestic R&D capacity, and is exploring ways to invest in longer-term ‘deep-tech’ projects alongside academia, and the private sector. Here one industry that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves, is agriculture.

Tune in for a discussion with Al Anoud on Agri-Tech and how the ‘GAIA’ project is bringing NASA Space Technology to delivery-truck sized farming capsules. Each capsule is environmentally controlled, and energy and water self-sufficient. The idea of a ‘circular economy’ is filtering out of the policy community into the tech industry. Can the UAE overcome its challenges in R&D, to develop and export solutions to the rest of the world? Al Anoud Al Hashimi, believes so.