Alumni Spotlight: How Sulaiman AlJanahi bridged the gap between academia and industry

One of the key missions of Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) is to take the groundbreaking academic and research initiatives of its students and faculty and use it to positively impact the world around us.

AI is a critical component for the UAE’s — and the world’s — future growth and prosperity, but how do you take the stellar academic work of MBZUAI and apply it to the wider social and economic ecosystems?

Former MBZUAI student Sulaiman AlJanahi is playing a key role in doing just this. The Bahrain national worked in at the national payments company in his home country before joining the first batch of MBZUAI students in 2021, graduating with a master’s in machine learning at the end of 2022. Staying in Abu Dhabi, AlJanahi rejoined the corporate world as a founding member and associate project manager of new startup Al Etihad Payments — a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE.

Building on the learnings from his M.Sc., where he focused on optimisation techniques for federated learning, his work with Al Etihad Payments is helping to reshape the UAE’s payments landscape.

“My main focus is the Aani instant payment system,” he said. “So, anything to do with the products, anything to do with the changes, new releases, integrating the entire ecosystem, governance of the system, the apps, and much more. As well as building the company as part of the founding team.”

With an ambition to become the world’s leading payments authority, as well as a key contributor to the government’s objectives of creating a cashless society, enabling digital transformation in payments, and developing best-in-class financial markets infrastructure, Al Etihad Payments is at the cutting edge of the country’s Fintech industry. Demands and expectations must surely be high, but AlJanahi explained that his time at MBZUAI prepared him well for the rigours of startup life, where hours can be long, and responsibilities varied.

“The program at the university required a lot of discipline and dedication and instilled in me an amazing level of work ethic,” he said. “Whatever people consider tough here [at Al Etihad Payments] is OK for me because I’ve already been through tougher levels of work.

“Projects in Abu Dhabi, especially govt projects, are rapid. The timelines are extremely aggressive, expectations are high, and the work ethic is high. They expect the best, and we know how to deliver it.

“The university helped familiarise us with the ecosystem in Abu Dhabi — the various government initiatives, what the government is investing in, its strategy objectives, and many more things. It made us feel as though we were part of that environment and playing an important role, so I’m happy to be contributing in this way.”

Alongside his responsibilities at Al Etihad Payments, AlJanahi is a member of the first MBZUAI Alumni Advisory Board.

The Alumni Advisory Board works with the university and its alumni community to help shape the future of MBZUAI and contribute to the growth and success of the UAE, and AlJanahi sits on the entrepreneurship and incubation subcommittee that helps build bridges for students between academia and the wider world.

“I work with the university’s Entrepreneurship and Incubation Centre to try to see what gaps there are in empowering students and alumni to apply with their startup ideas, get funding, grow their business, and identify solutions that are missing,” he said. “Really we’re trying to relate whatever research the students are working on to real world problems.”

It was the sense of belonging that AlJanahi referred to earlier that encouraged him to join Alumni Advisory Board. “I felt invested in the university’s success and wanted to play a part in building its entrepreneurship and startup profile,” he said, adding that the feeling was the same for his new home, Abu Dhabi.

“After graduating from MBZUAI, I could have gone anywhere, but I felt that Abu Dhabi had invested in me, so I was invested in its success. When I got the offer to join Al Etihad, it was a no brainer — a high-impact role that will help give Abu Dhabi a name in the Fintech space and overtake leaders around the world.”

Having successfully bridged the gap between academia and industry, AlJanahi is grateful for the opportunity to pass on his experience to MBZUAI students, and offers words of advice to those looking to follow a similar path after graduation.

“First of all, it’s important to note that even though the university is primarily a research-based academic institution, there’s nothing to stop you from going to product-related roles,” he said.

“Being a researcher doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to become a developer or engineer — you can be flexible and extend your expertise to whatever domain you’re interested in. You can take what you learn at MBZUAI and apply it to so many things, and if you don’t use your technical expertise right away in a role, don’t worry, you will eventually. AI is becoming more and more ingrained in every area of business and life, so every organisation will need people with your abilities.

“Use what skills you have, what you excel in, but don’t box yourself into a certain role. The sky is the limit.”