Dubai-it Awards Recognize Emaar, Ziina, FIX and Sheikh Ahmed

Four recipients have been named for the Dubai-it Awards: Emaar Properties, Ziina, FIX Dessert Chocolatier and Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Dubai's Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, announced the honorees. The awards cover real estate, aviation, fintech and business.

The annual program recognizes individuals, projects, institutions and companies that converted ambitious ideas into completed work. It was launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to embed a development model built on speed, quality, innovation and measurable impact. The initiative is intended to reinforce Dubai's standing as a global centre for business, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Emaar's delivery record

Emaar received the award for Institutions in the Field of Real Estate. The citation focused on the pace, standard and operational discipline behind its major Dubai destinations. In one year the developer launched 62 projects and handed over more than 12,000 residential units. Those figures cover a single 12-month window, not a multi-year total.

Its portfolio includes Downtown Dubai, Dubai Marina, Dubai Hills Estate and Emaar Beachfront. Dubai Mall recorded 111 million visitors in one year, a figure that illustrates the traffic its destinations attract.

Sheikh Hamdan said the company's 12-month achievements surpass global benchmarks, pointing to the scale of its projects, the quality of its build, the speed of delivery and continuous development. He congratulated Emaar founder Mohamed Alabbar.

Ziina's expansion beyond transfers

Ziina took the award for Companies in the Field of Business. The Dubai-based company began as a peer-to-peer payment app and expanded into an integrated financial platform for consumers and companies. It was founded by Arab entrepreneurs Faisal, Sarah and Talal Toukan.

Ziina has processed more than US$1.5 billion in payment volume and serves 500,000 users, including 290,000 business owners. Sheikh Hamdan said the company was built in Dubai by young Arab entrepreneurs and made it easier for thousands of businesses to accept payments by phone. The user and merchant counts show how far the business has moved from simple transfers between individuals.

FIX and the Dubai Chocolate effect

FIX Dessert Chocolatier received the award for Projects in the Field of Business. The brand grew from a home-based operation into a chocolate label with international recognition, and it helped popularise the 'Dubai Chocolate' trend. Its trajectory showed that a product developed locally can create global consumer demand and open a new confectionery category. The award places a food brand alongside larger companies in the same program, a reminder that consumer categories can carry international reach.

Aviation leadership

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum was honored for his role in reshaping Dubai's aviation sector and raising the international profile of its airlines. He is chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline. Sheikh Hamdan announced the recognition on X and highlighted Sheikh Ahmed's leadership in building Dubai into one of the world's leading aviation hubs. His award follows the same logic as the others: a specific contribution to a sector Dubai treats as strategic.

The awards matter because they measure recognition against output: projects launched, units delivered, payment volume processed, visitors recorded. That emphasis gives Dubai's promotion of itself as a business hub a concrete scorecard, and it signals to founders and established companies that scale and execution carry weight in the emirate's public narrative. For a city competing for regional headquarters and startup talent, that evidence is more persuasive than a slogan.

The four honors span a developer, a fintech platform, a confectionery brand and an aviation executive. Each case rests on a number or a completed project, from 62 launches in a year to 500,000 users, rather than on a promise. The categories differ, but the test applied to each is the same.