On March 2 and 3, NYU Abu Dhabi will be hosting the Abu Dhabi Ideas Festival, created in cooperation between Tamkeen and the Aspen institute. It will cap off the end of February, hailed as the UAE’s “Innovation Month.”

The event is scheduled as an afternoon and evening affair using various campus facilities.

“The festival will span the campus from East to West Plazas. A main stage will be set up in the Central Plaza, featuring a host of local, regional and international acts. ... In the Black Box, we have a fantastic line-up of festival speakers across both days of the event. Workshops and other activities will be held along the campus’ main walkways flanked by a host of food trucks,” wrote Stella Brockway, Special Projects & Initiatives Manager at Tamkeen, in an email to The Gazelle.

This year’s Ideas Festival is slated to be bigger than 2017’s, hosting more general events for families and boasting a greater array of high-profile speakers, including former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UAE Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development H.E. Noura al-Kaabi.

The slated events for the festival center on a variety of speakers. Most of the VIPs will be attending one of the four so-called moonshot forums on either politics, oncology or artificial intelligence. However, there will also be a variety of musical groups and individual speakers in attendance to round out the programming. Notably, the group includes Mohamed Amine Belarbi, class of 2016 and Vera Ciocca, class of 2021. Belarbi and Ciocca will continue the trend of NYUAD students participating in the event, following last year’s involvement of Nada Al Bedwawi, Class of 2019, who was the UAE Olympics swimmer.

Belarbi and Ciocca are known for their entrepreneurship and singing, respectively. Asked for comment, Ciocca had few inhibitions about performing in front of VIPs like David Cameron next week.

“I’ve had the opportunity to sing in front of distinguished people in the past, including the current president of Colombia. However, this is the first time that I will be performing in front of so many accomplished guests who will all be attending the event at the same time. I feel incredibly honored to be a part of this festival and I can't wait for it to happen,” wrote Ciocca.

Attending the Ideas Festival costs 20 AED for students and 30 AED for adults. But, according to Tamkeen, the public festival events will be free for students.

“The event has two parts – a public festival, which all NYUAD card holders can attend for free, and a forum for a smaller group of invited guests. As with last year, we’d like to involve NYUAD students in the forum and would encourage anyone keen to volunteer to email info@ideasweekend.ae for more information,” Brockway explained to The Gazelle.