Female founder accelerator launched at Dubai AI Campus

Edinburgh entrepreneur Veenoo Sharma has launched "SHE Leads with AI", a female-founder accelerator at Dubai AI Campus offering 30 fully funded places on a six-day programme that begins on 16 November. The campus’s first female-founder accelerator will be delivered at the Dubai International Financial Centre’s (DIFC) Innovation Hub, with applications open internationally and a particular call for UK-based female founders to apply.

"I wanted to create a programme aimed at exceptional female entrepreneurs building businesses with real international potential. SHE Leads with AI also creates a direct pathway from the UK into Dubai's AI, investment and business ecosystem, and gives founders the opportunity to build relationships and explore markets that might otherwise feel difficult to access," said Veenoo Sharma, founder and president of The Power Diaspora Forum (TPDF) and recently named Diaspora Entrepreneurship Advisor to the Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network.

The six-day intensive will focus on building founders' understanding of artificial intelligence and its practical application within their businesses, while delivering investor-readiness support and ecosystem introductions. Participants will engage directly with investors, venture capitalists, family offices, mentors and partners within the DIFC ecosystem and will conclude the programme with a live investor showcase.

• Programme: SHE Leads with AI — six days, starts 16 November
• Places: 30 fully funded slots
• Location: Dubai AI Campus at DIFC Innovation Hub
• Target: Female founders globally, with encouragement for UK applicants

The initiative forms part of TPDF’s wider international work connecting women across business, politics, investment and diplomacy. Sharma linked the accelerator to recent TPDF activity including a Women in Power roundtable at the United Nations in Geneva, where senior figures from politics, business, diplomacy and public life discussed barriers to women’s progress in enterprise and leadership. "Our conversations in Geneva reinforced something very important: discussing the barriers facing women is not enough. We also have to build the pathways that help women overcome them. SHE Leads with AI is about turning dialogue into delivery," Sharma said.

The launch comes amid persistent funding imbalances for female-founded teams. Figures published in the government’s sixth annual progress report on the Investing in Women Code show that all-female founder teams received just 2% of total investment value across the wider market. Among code signatories, that share rose to 6%, up from 4% in 2023. The British Business Bank reported that 32% of venture capital investment from signatories went to teams with at least one female founder in 2025, up from 27% in 2024, compared with 15% of total equity investment across the wider market.

Government efforts to improve the picture have scaled up: the Department for Business and Trade said more than 330 organisations had signed up to the Investing in Women Code, up from 12 in 2019, and that the Invest in Women Taskforce had deployed more than £70m from its £635m funding pool in its first year. Separately, in May the British Business Bank committed an initial £1m to co-invest with Angel Academe in female-led UK businesses.

Sharma and TPDF are positioning SHE Leads with AI as a practical intervention to convert growing dialogue and funding commitments into tangible pathways for female founders to access AI markets, capital and international partnerships. With applications open internationally for the 30 funded places, the programme aims to connect early-stage women-led ventures directly to Dubai’s investment and AI ecosystem ahead of the November showcase.