The third annual 1 Billion Followers Summit, which took place in Dubai this past January, was originally expected to have around 5,000 attendees. Instead, 30,000 creators, creator industry execs, entrepreneurs, and other digital media-savvy businesspeople ended up coming together at the Museum of the Future in the Emirates Towers.
Over the next three days, those attendees had the chance to check out 350 different sessions, panels, and workshops from 420 speakers across three different tracks (Creator Economy, Technology, and Content), all designed to help them develop as creators, small business owners, and denizens of our digital world.
Some notable English-language programming included:
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- How to Stay Relevant for a Decade with magician/creator Zach King
- Increasing CPMs For MENA Creators, a group panel discussing the “economic and creative roadblocks stifling growth” for creators in the Middle East and North Africa
- Caspar Lee’s Journey from YouTube to Investing with (of course) Caspar Lee and Sasha Kaletsky, Managing Partner at Creator Ventures
- Resilience, a keynote from longtime motivational creator Jay Shetty
- Building a Viral Brand with YouTuber Airrack and Zack Honarvar, co-founder/CEO at Creator Now
- How Dude Perfect’s $100M+ Deal Redefined Media with Tucker Brown (Managing Director of CAA’s investment arm) and Andrew Graham (Head of Business Development for CAA Digital)
- Making it from Short-Form to Long-Form Content with a panel of experts
- AI’s Impact on the Creator Economy: Challenges & Opportunities with Jeremiah Owyang, General Partner at Blitzscaling Ventures and founder of Llama Lounge AI
- and How I Raised the Richest Man On Earth with Elon Musk’s mother Maye Musk
The summit also awarded a $1 million prize with the theme of “Content for Good” that ended up going to British creator Simon Squibb, founder of free entrepreneur resource guide/networking pool HelpBnk.
And, on top of that, it divvied up $13.6 million among participants in a Shark Tank-esque competition called “1 Billion Pitches,” where startups went before a panel of investors and talked up their ideas in STEM, tech, and more. Winners there included “trainable pathology” program Halo AI and South Korean media company Eugenius.
1 Billion Followers Summit is financially supported by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, who in 2024 announced a $40.8 million governmental fund dedicated to promoting content creation.
That fund also supports Creators HQ, a governmental organization and creator makerspace whose plan is to bring 10,000 more content creators to come live and work in Dubai. Creators HQ was unveiled at 1 Billion Followers Summit 2025, and went on to select its first 100 Founding Members, including Dhar Mann, Supercar Blondie, and Yes Theory.
They, along with other paying members, receive community, technical, legal, and production assistance if they’re willing to relocate at least part-time to Dubai. All members get perks like help securing a Golden Visa, relocation support, and access to 300+ biz dev events per year, while Founding Members get additional exclusive pluses, like 24/7 concierge services, a guaranteed speaking slot at the next 1 Billion Followers Summit, and priority access to participate in the Dubai government’s influencer marketing campaigns.
The biz dev events are mini slices of the summit’s programming, and are meant to sustain the Dubai creator community for the 11-month gap between conventions.
Fast-forward to today, and it’s been eight months since the 2025 event. Organizers are in the midst of gearing up for 1 Billion Followers Summit 2026. We’ll have more information about speakers, programming, and tickets later this month, but for now, we can say that the summit will take place Jan 9-11, 2026, at the Museum of the Future and the Dubai International Financial Centre.
