MBZUAI to showcase AI innovation at Machines Can See 2025 with expert speakers and live demos
Dubai, UAE: Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) will participate as an official partner at Machines Can See 2025 (MCS 2025), taking place April 23–24 during Dubai AI Week. The event, hosted at the Museum of the Future and Emirates Towers, will gather more than 2,000 experts and enthusiasts focused on building a safer, more sustainable world through AI.
'As an official partner of Machines Can See, MBZUAI is proud to contribute towards building an AI ecosystem aligned with the UAE's ambitions for global leadership in science and technology,' said Ivan Laptev, Professor of Computer Vision at MBZUAI and Co-Founder of Machines Can See. 'Our research and innovations across all AI disciplines inspire students and researchers to unlock the full potential of this technology. We're excited to connect with the wider community and share what we've been working on in robotics and computer vision, showing how the university is making progress in building smart, AI-powered systems.'
MBZUAI's presence at MCS 2025 includes leading voices from its research community:
Hao Li, Professor of Computer Vision, will deliver both the opening and closing remarks on April 23.
Sami Haddadin, Vice President of Research and Professor of Robotics, will speak on the 'Robots: Are We Ready?' panel on April 24 at 9:50 a.m.
Ian Reid, Department Chair and Professor of Computer Vision, will join the 'Computer Vision: 2025' panel on April 24 at 5:30 p.m.
Wafa AlGhallabi, Ph.D. student and c o-founder of Nutrigenics and Lawa.ai, will participate in the 'AI for All: Ensuring Equal Access to AI' panel on April 24 at 4:50 p.m.
MBZUAI's booth will feature four interactive demonstrations developed by its research teams:
Holographic Brain
This advanced platform segments the brain into 32 structures and analyzes more than 100 radiomics features per region to detect subtle abnormalities. Integrating imaging, connectivity, and genetic data, the tool supports personalized risk assessment and improves diagnostic precision for neurological and psychiatric conditions.
AI Arabic Doctor
Developed using MBZUAI's BiMediX2 model, AI Arabic Doctor is a multimodal virtual assistant capable of answering medical queries in Arabic and English, interpreting medical images, and supporting illiterate users through speech interaction. It addresses healthcare access challenges across the Middle East and Africa and was named a winner of Meta's inaugural Llama Impact Innovation Awards.
Voodoo XP
Developed by the MBZUAI Metaverse Center, Voodoo XP is a one-shot, face re-enactment tool that creates 3D avatars from a single portrait image. Available via camera or VR headset, the demo enables immersive interaction and long-distance communication through realistic avatars, bringing people closer in virtual environments.
LAIKA
LAIKA is a robot dog that showcases robotic locomotion, perception, and reasoning. It combines the latest advances in AI and can respond to voice commands, navigate to locations of interest, and tell people what it observes. LAIKA is a prototype for an autonomous explorer or inspection robot that could help people with tedious or dangerous tasks in safety, healthcare, construction, agriculture, and more.
About Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)
MBZUAI is a research-focused university in Abu Dhabi, and the first university dedicated entirely to the advancement of science through AI. The university empowers the next generation of AI leaders, driving innovation and impactful applications of AI through world-class education and interdisciplinary research. In 2025, MBZUAI launched its first ever undergraduate program, a Bachelor of Science in AI, with two distinct streams: Business and Engineering. For more information, please visit www.mbzuai.ac.ae.
To apply for admission, visit mbzuai.ac.ae or contact admission@mbzuai.ac.ae. For press inquiries, please contact:
Aya Sakoury
MBZUAI's Head of PR and Strategic Communications
Amy Rogers
MBZUAI's Senior Integrated Communications Specialist
media@mbzuai.ac.ae
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Khaleej Times
2 days ago
- Khaleej Times
UAE: Student develops AI system to help police detect crimes before they happen
A member of Dubai Police, and inspired researcher, has developed a homegrown system that could take crime prevention one step further — by detecting it before it happens. Dr Salem AlMarri, the first Emirati to earn a Ph.D. from the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), has designed a video anomaly detection (VAD) system capable of identifying unusual behaviour in real-time. The technology could, in theory, alert authorities to suspicious or harmful activity before a formal complaint is ever made, or even before a crime is committed. 'Today, we understand how a human or object looks and moves. But how do we understand something that breaks the pattern, [like] an anomaly?' AlMarri said in an interview with Khaleej Times. 'A person walking in a very weird manner could mean something is going on. It could be an accident, or a hazard, or a fight unfolding. Anomalies have different meanings in real life; and we're training AI to recognise them.' While the field of anomaly detection has existed for decades, AlMarri's research brings the concept into the realm of video and audio. Using AI, his model is trained to distinguish between normal and abnormal footage. For example, learning to identify when an incident like a robbery or assault is taking place, even if it unfolds in a subtle or non-violent manner. As an example, he cited a hypothetical scene where a man walks up to a cashier and asks for money, politely. 'A normal camera won't know what's happening, it will just see a generous cashier handing money to somebody.' But beneath the surface, the AI model may detect subtle cues like body posture, tone, micro-behaviours — that point to coercion or threat. The model must first 'understand what is normal and what is abnormal,' by being trained on large amounts of labelled footage, he explained. 'We need to show it footage of people just handling money in the normal fashion. And then we tell it, okay, this is where something bad happens — robbery, burglary, or whatever. It learns to tell the differences, like a human child. And if it predicts correctly, it gets rewarded.' Thousands of experiments AlMarri's research, carried out during his secondment from Dubai Police, involved thousands of training experiments using real-world datasets. To overcome a key challenge — that many videos don't clearly indicate when an abnormal event begins, he designed a new approach. 'I shuffled different segments of videos to create a custom dataset, one moment showing a road accident, the next showing people walking normally in a mall, then a street fight,' he explained, 'this way, the model learned to recognise when something shifted from normal to abnormal.' His work also tackled real-world obstacles that could hinder performance. He developed a benchmark that allows the model to function even when one input, audio or video, is corrupted. This has major implications in the UAE, where weather conditions like fog can obstruct video clarity. 'If there's heavy fog or noise distortion, many models fail. So we trained ours to rely on one modality if the other is compromised. This is crucial for environments like autonomous driving or surveillance during poor visibility,' he pointed. The flagship findings are part of his Ph.D. thesis at MBZUAI, conducted under the supervision of Professor Karthik Nandakumar in the Sprint AI lab, which focuses on security, privacy, and preservation technologies. Like father, like son AlMarri's journey is rooted in a childhood filled with invention. His father, an engineer, built a screw-free wind turbine in the 1990s, a computer interface for people with no limbs, and a digital attendance system for police officers — long before such technologies were mainstream. 'It was a personal challenge for me, to at least try to come close to his achievements, to carry on his legacy.' After joining Dubai Police in 2016 and working on robotics and drones, he pursued further education in AI to stay relevant as the department transformed into a data-driven force. 'Within the police, our department went from being a smart service department to an AI department. I felt like I was being outpaced,' he recalled. Following a master's in electrical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, he was selected for MBZUAI's first Ph.D. cohort in computer vision - a move he describes as transformative. "MBZUAI humbled me,' described the 30-year-old. 'I had won competitions and worked on great projects, but this was something different. I was challenged over and over. When I walked out the door, I thought I didn't know anything. But when I came into reality, I realised I had been equipped to face any challenge.' The road ahead AlMarri is now preparing to return to Dubai Police and hopes to present his work to senior leadership. While the system has not yet been implemented by the police, he believes it could have significant value.'They have done exceptionally,' he said, referring to the force's AI capabilities. '[The technology] works. It can be deployed. It's up to them how they want to use it.' He expressed confidence that Dubai Police, a recognised leader in smart policing, would be well-positioned to integrate the research. 'They've reached a high level of maturity in AI. I believe I'm returning to an entity that can make effective use of what I've worked on, and I hope to contribute to their development journey. If we have this conversation in a year, the impact will be evident,' he said confidently. As for what's next, AlMarri hopes to publish research regularly, mentor young talent, and continue innovating - always with the goal of giving back to his country. 'I've been blessed to be the first Emirati Ph.D. from MBZUAI,' he noted. 'That comes with responsibility. Research is one way to give back, not just to science, but to the UAE.'
Gulf Today
29-05-2025
- Gulf Today
Khaled attends MBZUAI's commencement ceremony
Sheikh Khaled Bin Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, has attended the 2025 commencement ceremony of Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). The graduating class comprised 104 students, making it MBZUAI's largest and most diverse cohort to date. The cohort included 13 PhD and 91 master's degree graduates across the university's three specialisations: Computer Vision (CV), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Sheikh Khaled congratulated the graduates on their achievement and honoured several PhD and master's recipients, wishing them continued success in their academic and professional journeys, encouraging them to apply their knowledge and expertise in advancing the nation's development and helping to build an innovation-led, technology-driven economy. He emphasised the UAE leadership's firm belief that shaping the future begins with knowledge, science, and technological advancement, noting that the UAE continues to strengthen its position as a leading global hub for artificial intelligence research and development by building an integrated ecosystem that places AI in the service of people and society, while reinforcing national leadership in key strategic sectors. The ceremony was attended by Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority and Chairman of MBZUAI's Board of Trustees, Dr Ahmed Mubarak bin Nawi Al Mazrouei, Chairman of the President's Office for Strategic Affairs and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, Faisal Abdulaziz Al Bannai, Adviser to the UAE President for Strategic Research and Advanced Technology Affairs, Sara Awadh Musallam, Chairperson of Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge, Mansour Ibrahim Al Mansouri, Chairman of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, Ahmed Tamim Al Kuttab, Chairman of the Department of Government Enablement, Major General Ahmed Saif Bin Zaitoon Al Muhairi, Commander-in-Chief of Abu Dhabi Police, Saif Saeed Ghobash, Secretary General of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and Chairman of the Office of the Crown Prince, Professor Eric Xing, MBZUAI President and University Professor, Timothy Baldwin, MBZUAI Provost, members of the university faculty, and graduates' families. This year's cohort has 20 Emirati graduates, the highest number since the university's inception, including one PhD graduate in Computer Vision (CV) and nine local female graduates in different AI specialities, underscoring the university's commitment to cultivating homegrown talent to lead artificial intelligence-related sectors. Graduates from the 2025 class represent 24 countries, including Pakistan, India, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Italy, as well as first-time graduates from Armenia, Bangladesh, Comoros, Dominica, Eritrea, Norway, Serbia, and Uruguay, underscoring the university's growing international reach and its commitment to attracting top global talent. MBZUAI now boasts an expanding alumni network of 316 AI specialists, driving transformation across industries worldwide. Nearly 80 per cent of alumni started working in Abu Dhabi within one year of graduation. As the university expands to offer 13 graduate programmes and launches its first undergraduate programme – a Bachelor of Science in AI with Business and Engineering tracks – it continues its mission to shape the future of AI locally, regionally and internationally. Recently, Sheikh Khaled attended the graduation ceremony of the 36th cohort of cadet officers, 38th cohort of university graduates, 21st cohort of female university graduates, and the third batch of international cadets at the Police College. Sheikh Khaled congratulated the graduates, wishing them success in their careers as they serve their nation and its leadership, underscoring the importance of upholding excellence in policing by adopting the latest methodologies and best practices in law enforcement and security, as a rapidly evolving sector. He also extended his congratulations to the international graduates, encouraging them to apply the skills and knowledge gained during their training to serve their respective countries. WAM
Al Etihad
28-05-2025
- Al Etihad
‘A moment of pride': MBZUAI graduates represent new crop of global AI talent
29 May 2025 01:05 SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)Year after year, the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) continues to reach major milestones, reflecting the UAE's expanding AI footprint. This year, the university celebrated its largest and most diverse graduating class, with 104 students earning future-ready degrees.'We had our first UAE national PhD graduate, who is also a member of Dubai Police. We also had our first three female PhD graduates. So, it was quite the milestone for the university,' Prof. Timothy Baldwin, Provost of MBZUAI, told Aletihad on the sidelines of Wednesday's graduation university awarded PhD degrees to 13 graduates and master's degrees to 91 students. Among them were 20 Emiratis — the highest number of UAE nationals to graduate since the university's year's graduates represent a new generation of AI talent, specialising in three core areas: Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing.'Next year, we will also have our first robotics graduates,' Baldwin said. 'Every year is the largest because we're growing and growing.'Although more than 80% of MBZUAI's students hail from around the world, 80% of graduates choose to remain in the UAE—a testament to the university's global appeal and national impact, Baldwin students are 'gaining high-end AI skills and generating intellectual capital'—creating innovations ranging from Arabic language models to breakthroughs in healthcare, the university's provost said.'Our Jais large language models are now the most popular for Arabic. These are open-weight and aligned with our region's values—something foreign models do not offer,' he explained.'From Alzheimer's and brain tumour detection to low-cost ultrasound tools—we are improving both hospital outcomes and access for underserved communities.'The MBZUAI students are not just learning AI, Baldwin said, they 'help build the safeguards the world urgently needs.' The Work of MBZUAI GraduatesSalem Almarri, the MBZUAI's first Emirati PhD graduate in computer vision, conducted a study on real-time anomaly detection. He developed three methods to identify criminal activity in video. 'Being the first Emirati PhD graduate (in this field) carries weight—I must keep going. We are blessed with leadership that had this vision, and now it's our turn to do our part,' Almarri said. Asif Hanif, who researched AI trust and model vulnerabilities, vowed to pursue higher studies after earning his PhD in computer vision. Mohamed Ridzwan, a PhD graduate in machine learning, focused on AI for cancer prediction. "MBZUAI is a hub of knowledge and a catalyst for AI in the region. It is a privilege to be part of this ecosystem,' he said. Maryam Arjemandi, who completed her master's in computer vision, studied fetal ultrasound imaging using diffusion models. 'There is a big data gap in medical imaging, so I partnered with Corniche Hospital to create a private dataset and trained a model to generate realistic ultrasound images,' she told Aletihad. Her aunt, Munira, beamed with pride just listening to the new graduate explain her work. 'She is the first in our family to earn a master's degree. She told me it was her dream—and thank God, I saw that dream come true."Arjemandi urged those thinking about pursuing AI studies to 'just go for it'. 'The UAE is the third strongest country in AI. If you want to do AI, come here,' she said. Hassan Almarzooqi was a proud father of graduates Abdullah and Abdelrahman. "It is truly a moment of joy. They are our sons, but also sons of the nation."Abdelrahman said it was 'a moment of pride to graduate from the top AI university', while Abdullah highlighted the university's steadfast support. 'Everything you need is provided — you just have to work hard,' Abdullah said.
