The grand graduation ceremony was held by The Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) for its second and third cohorts of the Executive Directors Programme (MEP) at the university’s campus in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi.

MBZUAI mentioned in a statement that the MEP is a 12-week “intensive experience developed to support the need for AI-savvy leaders across government, industry, academia, and beyond”, the university said. The programme is led by “some of the top innovators in AI and provides a practical grounding in AI and its implications on business and policymaking”.

During the graduation ceremony that was attended by Eric Cheng, President, MBZUAI and the leadership team of the university, the team presented their winning AI sustainability solutions for the program’s second and third cohorts.

In the 12-week programme, the graduates learned about the rapidly evolving AI landscape and the development of real-world solutions from globally acclaimed instructors from Oxford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, UC Berkeley and MBZUAI, where these AI experts are implementing in their respective organizations.

With an aim of ensuring the spread of AI awareness and growth in not-for-profit and charitable segments, the university had planned for two sponsored seats for NGO participants.

As the participants applied their learnings to deliver impact in critical areas such as energy, finance, logistics, security, education, finance, environment and health, the culmination of the programme is a set of capstone projects.

Around 14 projects were developed by the graduates that focused on real-world global and national challenges. Adherence with the UAE’s designation of the present year 2023 as the year of Sustainability, the programme equipped the participants to counter the challenges concerning climate change by empowering them with the crucial skills and know-how in developing AI-enabled solutions to its run up to COP28 UAE.