What connects him to Abu Dhabi
Rahim worked for the government of Abu Dhabi earlier in his career, before founding EtonX and long before the research this site publishes. Earlier still he wrote for Time Out Abu Dhabi and Time Out Dubai, and wrote a guidebook to the region. That is the Emirate known from inside an institution and covered street by street on deadline, rather than familiarity acquired from a conference visit.
In the Emirates he has presented in Dubai many times and has worked for multiple legal clients, spoken at Dubai Arbitration Week and delivered a SuperSkills keynote at JESS Dubai. The detail is on the Dubai page.
How to read this. The government role and the journalism are not keynotes and are not offered as any. The delivered speaking in the Emirates listed above happened in Dubai, and the legal clients are not named at their preference.
Where the ambition is real and the measurement is not
Abu Dhabi’s own framing sits unusually close to the argument in these keynotes. Its 2025 to 2027 digital strategy reports over 95 per cent of its 30,000-plus employees completing AI training, and states that employees are being prepared to apply AI in ways that enhance, rather than replace, human-centred public service. That is the right instinct, put in writing by a government.
The harder question is what the training measures. Completion is delivery, not capability. The test that decides anything is whether a person could still do the work unaided, and no government in the Gulf currently measures that. The method is at how you assess capability rather than output.
What moved in June 2026
The wider federal position moved in June 2026, when the Office of AI was folded into a new Artificial Intelligence and Data Authority reporting directly to Cabinet, alongside a programme to train 80,000 federal employees in agentic AI and a target to deploy agentic AI across half of government services.
A target for deployment and a target for training, with no stated test of whether the people trained can still work without the system, is the exact shape this research keeps finding. Ambition is not the missing part.
A principle with no duty-holder
The UAE Charter of 10 June 2024 states human oversight as Principle 6, emphasising the irreplaceable value of human judgment and human oversight over AI. It names no duty-holder, sets no competence requirement, carries no enforcement mechanism and says nothing about deskilling or over-reliance.
The gap between an ambitious programme and an unenforceable principle is where these sessions are useful. The full verified picture, with every document read at the issuing body’s own page, is at AI and work in the Gulf.
Where these sessions happen in Abu Dhabi, and when they can
Two naming points that date a document instantly. ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi no longer trades as the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, and Emirates Palace is now Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental.
- ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi
- 153,678 square metres in total, with the ICC taking up to 6,000 delegates and combined spaces up to 12,000. Marina Hall adds 10,000 square metres. The only building in the Emirate at this scale, and where most of the annual fixtures happen.
- Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental
- The Etihad Ballroom is 2,183 square metres, divisible into three; the Auditorium is 3,000 square metres seating 1,100; the Palace Terrace takes up to 3,000 for a reception. Note the hotel deliberately does not publish a ballroom seating figure, so anyone quoting one is quoting a directory.
- Etihad Arena, Yas Island
- 13,600 seated, or 18,000 for a full bowl. The distinction matters in a brief: the larger number includes standing. The Grand Ballroom alongside is 1,200 square metres, divisible into three.
- Conrad Abu Dhabi Etihad Towers
- The Mezzoon Ballroom occupies 1,920 square metres for up to 1,000 guests, divisible into four, with thirteen meeting rooms. On the Corniche, and no longer under the Jumeirah brand.
- Erth Abu Dhabi
- 2,800 square metres of flexible space, with Al Mis’hab Hall at 1,890 taking 1,200 for a buffet or 3,000 for a reception, 600 parking spaces and simultaneous translation systems in the building. The translation point is the one that usually decides it.
- Al Maryah Island and ADGM
- Not a venue but the address that changes the audience. ADGM applies English common law directly, so the room is regulated capital: asset management, institutions and fintech, and an audience that reads a compliance argument faster than a technology one.
Abu Dhabi’s fixtures are more stable than Dubai’s, and the useful warning is about collision rather than about movement. ADIPEC runs 2 to 5 November 2026 at ADNEC. The first week of December 2026 is the worst window in the Emirate: Abu Dhabi Finance Week runs 7 to 10 December on Al Maryah Island and the Grand Prix 4 to 6 December at Yas Marina, taking the two hotel clusters between them. Late January 2027 is nearly as difficult, with Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 10 to 14 January and IDEX 25 to 29 January, both at ADNEC, eleven days apart.
One name to correct in a brief: ADGM’s flagship is Abu Dhabi Finance Week, and there is no event called the Global Financial Regulatory Summit.
The part almost nobody publishes, and the part an organiser needs first. Two months of the Gulf year are effectively closed to a full-day conference.
Ramadan. In 2027 it is expected to run from about 8 February to 8 March, with Eid al-Fitr around 9 March. In 2028, from about 28 January to 25 February, with Eid around 26 February. Those are astronomical calculations rather than confirmed dates. Each country fixes the start by official crescent sighting, announced one or two days ahead, they run separate processes, and they can announce different first days from one another. Assume plus or minus a day and do not print it as fixed. Eid al-Adha adds a further multi-day break, expected around 15 to 16 May 2027 and 4 to 5 May 2028, which a spring date can walk into.
What Ramadan does to a working day in the Emirates is stated in law, and the scope is the part that surprises people. The UAE government’s own guidance says working hours are reduced by two hours a day and that this applies to Muslim and non-Muslim employees alike, without deducting wages. That makes it a whole-of-economy scheduling constraint rather than a religious accommodation, and a full-day agenda does not fit inside it.
The summer. Under Ministerial Resolution 44 of 2022, work directly under the sun and in open places is prohibited between 12.30 and 15.00 from 15 June to 15 September every year, with a penalty per worker. The rule targets outdoor labour rather than delegates, and that is exactly why it is worth quoting: it is the state’s own formal finding that the midday environment is hazardous for three consecutive months.
Two Emirati specifics worth building into a plan. The federal working week is four and a half days with a half-day Friday to noon, and Sharjah government works a four-day week with a three-day weekend, so a multi-emirate delegate list needs checking against both. Working back from all of it, the dependable windows are roughly late September to late January, and mid-March to late May.
