DubAi Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) was a dream to turn Dubai into the silicon valley for the Arab region, that dream was shattered when multi national tech companies and other mid and small tech companies, chose the Oasis as a sales and marketing hub for their operations, not as an R&D center.
However DSOA has plans to change that, As today Ray Milhem, the new chief technology officer of technology investment at DSOA, told Gulf News that the authority will launch a global fund to attract research and development and manufacturing companies to set up a base in Dubai Silicon Oasis.
The fund will get investments from the authority and from local, regional and international investors and will target companies in the Arab region as well as global companies, but its amount has not been disclosed.
Gulf news reported: ”Earlier, the authority announced a budget of Dh25 billion set aside for investment in the coming years at DSOA. The whole project has already attracted foreign investments worth Dh1.4 billion. It has set aside about Dh500 million to invest in start-ups that will be spent over the next five years. Additionally, private investment into real estate at DSOA is Dh13 billion, while Dh10 billion is budgeted for the third phase of the project’s development.”