The future is now: Inside Khalifa University’s 2025 Innovation Day 

Morning light spills through the glass atrium, glinting off rows of prototypes and display screens. Researchers and students make final checks as visitors continue to gather. When His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Khalifa University, steps inside to applause, the university’s Research and Innovation Exhibition 2025—a showcase of ideas where science meets enterprise and innovation takes center stage—has begun. 

Building on the success of its first Innovation Day in 2024, February’s exhibition featured projects exploring new frontiers in science, engineering, technology, and healthcare.  

Exhibits were organized into three themed zones called Research, Industry Applications, and Start-ups. This offered glimpses into a broader national vision, where discovery fuels diversification, and innovation shapes the future of the United Arab Emirates. 

 
The pulse of discovery 

Walking through the exhibition was like stepping into a living laboratory. Drones hovered above the growing crowd, holographic projections displayed data from lunar rovers and gene-sequencing arrays, and robotic arms moved with precision. 

“Innovation Day showcases how our researchers are contributing to national priorities—from healthy longevity and digitalization to energy transition and sustainability.” 

Khadija Binsumaida 

“This exhibition brings together more than a hundred research and innovation projects,” says Khadija Binsumaida, Marketing Specialist and the event’s coordinator. “Innovation Day showcases how our researchers are contributing to national priorities, from healthy longevity and digitalization to energy transition and sustainability.” 

Across the floor Khalifa University’s spin-offs and start-ups were in action. DroneLeaf demonstrated its flight software that allows drones to learn and adapt mid-air, while Kumrah AI revealed the neuromorphic vision technology that mimics human perception for ultra-fast inspection. Both innovations echo the UAE’s Vision 2030—melding robotics, AI, and sustainability into the architecture of future cities. 

In the Healthy Longevity zone, Golde, a hydrogel-based wearable electrode, flexed like skin, transmitting data with comfort and precision beyond traditional sensors. Nearby, Mashyah analyzed gait and motion to help clinicians decode the rhythms of recovery. 

Other displays stretched imagination even further: a mangrove-inspired solar desalination device capturing nature’s efficiency; the Cancer Multi-Omics Atlas mapping genetic landscapes for precision oncology; and the compact 6U CubeSat, demonstrating the UAE’s expanding reach into space for continuum of innovation, from the molecular to the planetary. 

From laboratory to marketplace 

Behind the scenes, the Khalifa University Enterprises Company (KUEC), the university’s business and investment arm, bridges and catalyzes discoveries from conception to commercialization. “KUEC drives innovation commercialization and helps our start-ups grow beyond campus,” Binsumaida explains. 

In the Start-up Zone, founders mingled with investors and policymakers, their prototypes gleaming under spotlights. ProScreeniX, specializing in crystallization reagents for structural biology, showed how niche research can seed global enterprise. Around it, posters on 3D-printed solar absorbers, pregnancy-risk monitoring systems, and AI-based utility analytics hinted at the next-generation tech ready to leave the lab. 

Across every aisle, the exhibition’s themes intertwined, proving that innovation here is not confined to disciplines but woven into the fabric of national ambition. Khalifa University remains central to that vision: not merely a seat of learning, but a compass for the UAE’s innovation journey, aligning education, enterprise, and exploration. Its annual exhibition distills that spirit into something tangible, where curiosity meets courage and ideas take shape.