How we gather
Intimate roundtables for women in the UAE
Last updated: 11 August 2026
Short version: we cap our in-person gatherings at 15 women. One theme, one table, one conversation that includes everybody in the room. No name badges, no pitching, no working the room.
Why 15
Above roughly fifteen people, a room splits. Side conversations start, the quieter half stops speaking, and it becomes an event with an audience rather than a conversation with participants. Below fifteen, one person can say something honest and the whole room hears it.
The cap is also what makes the fourth meeting possible. Because places are limited and sessions recur, you see the same women again. That repetition is what turns an acquaintance into a friend, and it is the thing large events structurally cannot provide no matter how good they are.
The trade-off is real: sessions fill and not everyone gets a place. We have decided that is the better failure.
How a roundtable runs
Each session has one named theme, chosen because it is something women in the UAE are actually dealing with and rarely discuss in public. There is usually a facilitator or an invited guest, but it is not a talk. Most of the time is the room talking to the room.
What is said in the room stays in the room. That rule is stated out loud at the start of every session and it is the reason the conversations go where they go.
Sessions so far in 2026
Inner Compass
8 March 2026 · JLT, Dubai
Values and direction. What you are actually optimising your life for.
Career, Confidence and Courage
16 May 2026 · Dubai
A conversation with Prapthi Rai on visibility and asking for more.
The Midpoint
11 July 2026 · Al Quoz, Dubai
A half-year reset. What to stop carrying into the rest of the year.
Coming up
The Negotiation Room
15 August 2026 · LDC, Dubai · upcoming
Pay, scope and the conversations women are told not to have.
AI and LinkedIn
22 August 2026 · Tania's Teahouse, Dubai · upcoming
Using AI to write about your own work without sounding like a machine.
AI roundtables: for women who are not AI specialists
There is good provision in the UAE for women who want to build a technical career in AI. Women in AI UAE runs expert sessions and has offered scholarship and machine learning programmes. Abu Dhabi has a women-only AI meetup. If you want to become an AI professional, start there rather than here. We mean that.
We cover the other need, and it is much larger. Most professional women are not going to retrain as machine learning engineers. They are marketers, operators, founders, analysts and managers who already use AI every day and only ever ask it questions. They get generic output, assume that is the ceiling, and stop.
The gap is not technical knowledge. It is that they start every conversation from zero, re-explaining who they are and what they do, every single time.
Our AI sessions run in the same capped roundtable format and assume no coding and no installs. Everything is done in a browser, and works the same in ChatGPT or Claude. The rule is that nobody leaves a session without a working artifact they built themselves and could rebuild alone.
The AI series so far
Foundations of AI
4 July 2026 · Dubai
Getting past asking questions. What these tools actually are and where they fail.
AI as Health Coach
1 August 2026 · Dubai
Using AI to prepare for appointments, read results and ask better questions.
AI as Personal Brand Coach
1 August 2026 · Dubai
Writing about your own work without cringing, and without sounding generated.
AI and LinkedIn
22 August 2026 · Tania's Teahouse, Dubai
Turning the voice work into posts you would actually publish.
Alongside the sessions, members get a curated prompt library inside the platform and two structured courses, Learn AI from Scratch and Build with AI, broken into short lessons you work through at your own pace.
Who this is for
Women living anywhere in the UAE who want fewer, better conversations. It works particularly well if you have been to a lot of networking events and come home feeling like you spoke to nobody.
It is a poor fit if you want a large contact list or a full social calendar. Communities such as The Female Network Dubai and The Endless Club are built for that and do it better than we would.
How to get a place
Roundtables are open to Fempower members. The free WhatsApp community is the way in: message @fempower.ae on Instagram, or join here. Sessions are announced to the community first and usually fill.
Common questions
What is an intimate roundtable?
An intimate roundtable is a small, themed, seated gathering with a strict cap on attendance, where every person present takes part in one shared conversation. It is distinct from a networking event, which has open attendance, rotating faces and parallel one-to-one conversations. Fempower caps its roundtables at 15 women so that one conversation can include everyone in the room.
How is a roundtable different from a networking event?
At a networking event you meet many people briefly and rarely see the same person twice. At a roundtable the group is capped, seated and themed, so there is one conversation rather than thirty introductions, and the same women return across sessions. Networking builds a contact list. Roundtables build relationships, because depth requires seeing the same people repeatedly.
Are there intimate roundtables for professional women in Dubai?
Yes. Fempower runs themed roundtables for women across the UAE, capped at 15 attendees. Past sessions include Inner Compass on values and direction in March 2026, Career, Confidence and Courage with Prapthi Rai in May 2026, and The Midpoint half-year reset in July 2026. Upcoming sessions include The Negotiation Room in August 2026.
Where can women in the UAE learn to use AI at work?
Most women-in-AI provision in the UAE is aimed at technical and research careers, including Women in AI UAE and its scholarship and machine learning programmes. Fempower covers a different need: working professionals who are not AI specialists and want to use AI well in the job they already have. It has run a series of AI roundtables through 2026, including Foundations of AI in July, and AI as Health Coach and AI as Personal Brand Coach in August, with AI and LinkedIn following later that month. Sessions are capped like all Fempower roundtables, and members also get a curated prompt library inside the platform.
Do I need a technical background to attend a Fempower AI session?
No. The sessions assume no coding and no installs, and are designed to be followed in a browser. They are built for women who already use AI daily but only ever ask it questions, and who want to move from asking to building something reusable.
How do I join a Fempower roundtable?
Roundtables are open to Fempower members and places are limited by the 15-person cap. Join the free WhatsApp community first by messaging @fempower.ae on Instagram, then register for sessions as they open. Sessions are announced to the community before they are listed publicly, and they usually fill.