DUBAI, UAE — The United Arab Emirates is entering a new chapter in entrepreneurial education with the opening of the first MiniBoss Business School franchise in Dubai and the launch of an expanded student intake from September 2026.

The new Dubai school brings an international model of practical business education to one of the world's most entrepreneurial economies, giving children and teenagers the opportunity to learn how to think like entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors and future business leaders from an early age.

The development is being led in the UAE by Siddique Hills, a prominent entrepreneur and the owner of the MiniBoss Business School franchise in Dubai, who is bringing the international MiniBoss educational ecosystem to families across the Emirates.

The September intake marks much more than the opening of another educational centre. It represents a new step in the evolution of education in the UAE — a country that has made entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and the knowledge economy central to its national development strategy.

Why the UAE Is the Natural Home for Business Education

Few countries in the world have embraced entrepreneurship with the speed and ambition of the United Arab Emirates. In the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2025, the UAE ranked No. 1 globally for the fourth consecutive year for the quality of its entrepreneurial environment and was recognised as the leading destination for entrepreneurship and SMEs among the 56 economies assessed. The country ranked particularly strongly in areas including access to finance, government entrepreneurship programmes, market access and the integration of entrepreneurship into school and higher education.

This entrepreneurial culture is already deeply embedded in society. According to GEM data cited by the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism, approximately 67% of adults either personally know an entrepreneur or believe they have the skills required to start a business, while around 70% see good opportunities to launch a company in the UAE.

The scale of the business ecosystem is extraordinary. Rather than publishing a single official headcount of individual entrepreneurs, the UAE measures the sector largely through companies and SMEs. Recent Ministry figures indicate approximately 1.33 million SMEs, representing about 95% of companies operating in the country, while the total number of companies had risen to more than 1.4 million by the end of 2025. Around 250,000 new companies were established in 2025 alone.

A Country of More Than 11 Million People — and Rapidly Growing Global Cities

The educational opportunity is also driven by remarkable demographic growth. Official Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre data put the UAE population at approximately 11.29 million in 2024, with around 200 nationalities living and working in the country.

Emirate of Dubai reached 4.58 million by the end of 2025, up approximately 7.5% in a single year. During peak daytime hours, the number of people present in Dubai rises to approximately 6.39 million, reflecting its role as a global centre for business, employment and tourism.

The Emirate of Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, recorded a population of 4,135,985 in 2024. Within it, the Abu Dhabi Region itself accounted for approximately 2.82 million people, with the remainder primarily living in Al Ain and Al Dhafra.

One of the World's Most Diverse Education Markets

The UAE already operates one of the most internationally diverse school systems in the region, with more than 1,400 government and private schools reported across the country in recent national figures. The public system includes roughly 500 schools operated by the Emirates Schools Establishment, while the UAE also has a network of more than 600 private schools, alongside newer public-private and charter models. Because school regulation is distributed between federal and emirate-level authorities, exact national totals vary by academic year and classification.

Dubai demonstrates the scale of private education particularly clearly. In the 2024–2025 academic year, the city had 227 private schools educating 387,441 students across 17 curricula.

The next logical stage is therefore not merely expanding academic choice, but expanding what children are taught about the real world.

Mathematics, languages, and science remain essential. But a future-ready education also requires children to understand how to identify opportunities, create value, develop an idea, present it, build a team, manage resources, communicate with customers, understand money and transform creativity into a sustainable project. That is the space MiniBoss Business School is designed to address.

Preparing the Next Generation of Family Business Leaders

The UAE is also one of the world's major family-business economies. Recent government figures indicate that family businesses represent around 90% of private-sector companies in the UAE. Updated Ministry reporting has placed their economic contribution at approximately 60% of national GDP and their share of employment at more than 80%.

This makes succession much more than a private family issue. It is an issue of national economic importance.

Thousands of children growing up in the UAE may one day become the second, third or fourth generation responsible for businesses created by their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.

But inheriting ownership is not the same as being prepared to lead.

A successful successor needs entrepreneurial judgement, financial literacy, creativity, emotional intelligence, leadership, negotiation skills, strategic thinking and the ability to innovate rather than simply preserve what previous generations created.

The UAE itself has recognised this challenge through initiatives supporting the sustainability and intergenerational development of family companies. The government's Thabat programme, for example, was designed specifically to help family enterprises preserve their legacy while entering new economic sectors and creating innovative, high-growth ventures.

Teaching entrepreneurship from childhood therefore has a very practical purpose: to prepare heirs not merely to inherit businesses, but to develop them.

From Students to Founders

There is another important shift taking place. The UAE increasingly wants young people not only to become excellent employees, professionals and executives, but also to become founders, innovators and creators of new economic value.

In 2025 alone, around 25,000 SMEs were established by Emirati youth, according to the Ministry of Economy and Tourism.

In 2026, Dubai SME and INJAZ UAE launched the Founders of Tomorrow programme, linking young innovators with real business and government challenges and creating pathways from education into scalable Emirati-owned enterprises.

MiniBoss Business School brings this same entrepreneurial philosophy to an even earlier stage of life.

The idea is simple but powerful: to teach a young person how to unleash their full potential.

Children can and should begin developing entrepreneurial thinking from the early years. They can learn to generate ideas, identify problems, invent solutions, calculate costs and revenues, work in teams, present projects, negotiate, communicate and take responsibility for decisions. When these abilities are developed gradually from childhood, entrepreneurship becomes not simply a subject but a way of thinking.

MiniBoss Dubai: Learning Business by Doing Business

MiniBoss Business School is built around practical entrepreneurship rather than passive business theory.

Students are encouraged to discover their individual potential while developing competencies in entrepreneurship, invention, innovation, leadership, creativity, marketing, communication, public speaking, negotiation, teamwork and project development.

The objective is not to turn every child into a business owner. It is to give every student something equally valuable: the ability to think independently, recognise opportunities, create solutions and confidently transform ideas into action.

This approach is particularly relevant to the UAE because it connects education directly with the environment in which young people are growing up.

A child in Dubai can see entrepreneurship everywhere: in technology, property, hospitality, retail, logistics, finance, tourism, artificial intelligence, creative industries and family enterprises. MiniBoss allows children to begin understanding the mechanisms behind that world.

September 2026: A New Intake for UAE Families

With the launch of its first UAE franchise in Dubai, MiniBoss Business School is now expanding enrolment for the new academic year beginning in September 2026.

Under the leadership of franchise owner Siddique Hills, the Dubai branch will provide children and teenagers in the Emirates with access to MiniBoss's international educational methodology, practical business learning environment and wider entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The ambition extends beyond simply operating classes in one city.

Dubai represents the beginning of a broader opportunity to make systematic entrepreneurial education accessible to families throughout the UAE and, over time, to develop a new generation of young founders, innovators and responsible successors to family enterprises.

A New Step in the History of UAE Education

The UAE has already demonstrated to the world what can happen when a country combines vision, investment, entrepreneurship and an extraordinary willingness to innovate.

The next transformation may begin much earlier — in childhood.

If the UAE wants to remain one of the world's leading entrepreneurial and innovation economies for decades to come, tomorrow's business culture must be built in today's classrooms.

The opening of the first MiniBoss Business School in Dubai therefore represents more than international franchise expansion.

It reflects a larger transformation in education: from preparing children simply to participate in the future economy to preparing them to create it.

For a nation in which entrepreneurship is already deeply woven into economic life, in which family businesses shape the private sector, and in which innovation is a national priority, this is a natural next step.

Dubai is building the businesses of the future. MiniBoss Business School is helping to prepare the generation that will lead them.

Welcome to the MINIBOSS New Admission 2026-27!