‘I wanted to build a higher tower’: How Italian engineer Giovanni Zara Dubai-it with an AI-powered dream

Dubai: A good job, with a decent salary, in your hometown … for many that would be the picture of a perfect life. But when you’re always on the lookout for the next challenge, all those checked boxes can still not be enough.

That is the story of 32-year-old Italian expat Giovanni Zara, who moved to Dubai last year in October, to look for, what he calls, “a higher tower”.

Graduating from one of the best engineering colleges in Europe in 2020, Zara got a Fullbright scholarship and moved to San Francisco for a year, where he attended classes while completing his internship at a software company in San Jose, an experience he says rewired him.

“The mindset I absorbed there – think big, build fast, let the work speak, has shaped every professional decision I have made since,” he said.

At the company, his work on creating digital twins, to optimise the life cycle of various ‘assets’, did not go unnoticed.

“These assets could be anything like batteries. If you look at batteries – there are millions of batteries, and each has millions of cells, with each cell having several anodes and cathodes … these are highly complex systems and in order to optimise the life cycle of these assets you need to collect all the data and integrate it to let it perform as best as possible,” he said.

In 2022, he had to return to Italy, as part of his scholarship was funded by the Italian government. But the work he had done in San Jose had put him in good stead with the company he worked for, and the CEO gave him the green light to set up the company’s branch in Sardinia.

“I and the three other software engineers who were with me in the US were able to start the Sardinia branch together, where we worked mainly for the US market, but also for many Italian clients,” he said.

One of the first projects Zara worked on, and is particularly proud of, was EcoGrid – a platform for high level monitoring of energy systems, tracking energy production, consumption and efficiency. Conceptualised in his hometown of Guasila, which has a population of just about 3,000 people. Zara and his team were able to grow the platform to the point where it was bought by several clients, and is currently being used at one of the busiest airports in the US.

But while life in Sardinia was beautiful, Zara slowly began feeling a sense of unease.

“I was missing the adrenaline,” he said.

“While the first few years working for the company allowed me to learn something new every day, after that I found myself doing repetitive tasks and felt bored,” he added.

Making a resolution to get out of his comfort zone, Zara decided to move to Dubai to do his MBA, landing in the city in October last year.

“I chose Dubai, because geographically, the place is the perfect connection between Europe and Asia. I also thought there were a lot of opportunities here,” he said.

“As my expertise was in digital solutions for the energy sector, I moved to Dubai thinking I would complete my MBA and join a big company in the energy sector, working in innovation management,” he said.

Life, though, had different – much more fast-paced – plans.

The environment in Dubai wasn’t just ideal for someone working in AI, but also for entrepreneurs.

What would have cost Zara heavily just a few months ago was now an achievable target because of the progress AI had made in just a few months.

“Ever since I was 14, I had a dream of having my own company in the software industry, so the plan was always in the back of my mind,” he said.

“But I didn’t think that I would be able to build it this quickly because of the capability that AI gave me,” he added.

The potential was hard to ignore, so Zara decided to work on his company while studying for his MBA – an experience he would recommend “for the lessons but not for the workload”.

The biggest reason he was able to think of starting his company, though, was the cost barrier, which had significantly reduced, thanks to AI.

“When I started the company, I was able to do by myself the work that I previously would have needed a team of 10 engineers to do,” he said.

Building the company while studying also gave him an opportunity to test his knowledge in real-time.

“I built my company – Zara Bespoke Technology – while studying. Client deployments by day, classes and exams at night. Everything I studied, I could test on a real company within weeks. In August this year, I graduated with distinction, a few weeks after my company had issued its first invoice,” he said.

It’s a dream come true for the 32-year-old software engineer, and a dream that was possible because of Dubai.

“Honestly, anywhere else, if I had to start a company, it would have probably taken months and thousands of signatures. Here, I was able to do it easily online, in a couple of days,” he said.

Another key factor, Zara says, is the ‘Dubai-it’ mindset – of achieving extraordinary results in record time – which strikes the perfect balance between ambition and pragmatism.

“There are places that reward just the ambition. You can get funded for having a great idea or the perfect team. On the other hand, there are places that are the complete opposite, where it has to be very practical. I think Dubai has taken the best of both,” Zara said.

And then there is the focus on building a city for the future, by leveraging AI.

“It is one of the fastest growing business hubs in the world, and the UAE has made AI a national priority like few countries anywhere. This is the country that appointed the world's first Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, and its declared ambition is to be among the leading AI nations of the coming decade. For a founder building an AI-native company, it is hard to imagine a better place to stand,” he said.

“Here, the question is never whether to adopt new technology, it is how fast,” he added.

Coming to Dubai, Zara says, convinced him that taking risks does not mean being unrealistic, as long as your goals are clear and you want to make things happen, fast.

“Here, I see huge buildings being built in months, while in other places, the same would take years, may be. This isn’t something that happens by chance … it happens because people really believe in what they’re doing and they go all in,” he said.

“I am the same. Even though I had a great job and a great salary back home in Sardinia, I wasn’t satisfied. Because I wanted to build a higher tower. I have always been like – I choose carefully where I want to focus my energy and then I go all in. When I came to Dubai and saw this ‘Dubai-it’ mindset, I truly felt like I am in my place,” he said.