The SME Story: Melda Akin, founder and CEO of D14.AI 

What is D14.AI’s scope of work?
D14.AI is a Dubai-based tech company providing an AI-driven software platform for healthcare clinics, gyms and logistics companies to optimise their workforce and manage business operations in a secure and affordable way. Our technology is flexible, easy to integrate and intelligent enough to evaluate millions of combinations within minutes. We will continue to add other sectors such as hospitality. We’re a self-funded startup and have already reached the break-even point within a year.

How did the idea of starting your venture come about?
I’m a self-starter, and I’m passionate about organising the disorganised. Before launching D14.AI in Dubai’s burgeoning tech startup scene, I had set up my first company to offer digital transformation services. I was helping international companies grow revenues through digital solutions. During that time, I saw that there was a massive opportunity for optimisation. It’s the key focus for most of the sectors. I think it will always be the number one priority for companies.

Setting up a new business is already an exciting experience and establishing a startup in a new city, especially one as dynamic as Dubai, was more exciting. I think Dubai is a great place to be as an entrepreneur. There are so many opportunities and valuable lessons for entrepreneurs that they can learn and share.

What are some of the challenges you faced when setting up your company?
I think some of the biggest challenges that I see among startup companies are related to setting up the right team, having strong bonds with the clients, acting at a quick pace and staying focused, especially in a crisis. Having a solid plan and maintaining focus is crucial. The plan can be updated and modified when needed, as long as it does not affect the goal. Once there is a mission and vision that guides you, there is no reason not to be successful.

What are some of the new opportunities for tech startups within the AI space?
The AI space is quite extensive. We can count image and natural language processing, robotics, machine learning, neural networks and expert systems as some of the major subfields. There’s always room for innovation. With the pandemic, as we all know, automated systems, personalised healthcare solutions, and image processing became more popular. I believe we’ll see more tech startups that use AI in the future.

What are your expansion plans?
Our first focus is the GCC and then we plan to scale globally. We are investing in making our products easy to deploy so that we can expand all around the world.