Operation HOPE Founder brings message of inclusive capitalism and AI literacy to Abu Dhabi and Dubai during visit led by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office
ATLANTA (October 6, 2026) — John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, concluded a six-day visit to the United Arab Emirates last week, from September 29 to October 4. The program included a keynote at LIVEX 2026 at ADNEC and meetings with five senior UAE officials on economic development, community development and coexistence.
The visit was spearheaded by H.E. Badr Al Olama, Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) and H.E. Yousef Al Otaiba, UAE Ambassador to the United States.
Bryant delivered his LIVEX keynote on October 1, followed by stakeholder meetings on site. Over the week he met with H.E. Dr Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the Defence Affairs, Interior and Foreign Affairs Committee at the Federal National Council; H.E. Shamis Al Dhaheri, Chairman of the Department of Community Development; H.E. Mohamed Ali Al Shorafa, Chairman of the Department of Municipalities and Transport; H.E. Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi, Chairman of the Department of Economic Development; and H.E. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence.
The program also took Bryant into Abu Dhabi’s start-up economy. He toured the MiZa District with Deputy General Manager Khulood Al Atiyat and met the start-ups presenting there, then joined a panel at Hub71 hosted by its Chief Executive, Ahmad Ali Alwan. Masood Al Masood, Chairman of the Emirates Angels Investors Association, hosted him at Yas Marina Circuit.
Visits to the Zayed National Museum, Qasr Al Hosn and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque traced Abu Dhabi’s founding vision. On October 3, Bryant traveled to Dubai for a majlis hosted by H.E. Al Olama.
“Abu Dhabi is building an economy with purpose, and it keeps asking who gets to take part in it. We’ve been asking that same question in America since 1992. Good capitalism is where I benefit and you benefit more. I went to listen, and to carry that idea into rooms where it can travel,” said John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE.
About Operation HOPE, Inc.
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to “silver rights” with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $4.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: OperationHOPE.org.
