On day two of GESS Dubai 2026, the exhibition floor at Dubai World Trade Centre, Sheikh Saeed Halls, takes centre stage. This year’s show is expected to bring together more than 7,500 education professionals from over 90 countries across the three days, with exhibitors spanning EdTech, STEM tools, curriculum and assessment, school furniture, SEN resources, sustainability, school safety and early years.

New on the Floor This Year
This year’s exhibition welcomes GESS Dubai’s first dedicated EdTech and AI in Education pavilions, landing as the UAE rolls out AI across the national curriculum in all public and private schools, with around 22,000 teachers being trained to use it for teaching, assessment and lesson planning (Khaleej Times, 2 September 2026). The shortlist for this year’s “Best AI Product/Tool in Education” Award – among them finalist EdTool.ai, powered by Learnetic – reflects the same shift now playing out on the show floor.

Key Exhibitors
Confirmed on this year’s exhibitor list are AI and EdTech names including NeuroBoost AI, Albie AI, PowerSchool, Microsoft Gulf, McGraw-Hill Education, Mangahigh.com, Mozaik Education and myday by Collabco; classroom design and furniture exhibitors Marti Okulmobilyalari, Mike Miller Associates and Meerqat Polymers; and early years specialist Modern Teaching Aids International.

On the Floor: Hands-On Activations
Several exhibitors are bringing hands-on activations to day two of the show. At the Terra Pavilion Expo, Expo City Dubai is running nature-themed activities for visiting students, including bee-keeping and honey-making, giving them a direct, practical introduction to sustainability in action.

Stuart Hardy, Assistant Manager at Terra, Expo City Dubai, said: “Nothing teaches sustainability like watching it happen in front of you. Our beekeeping and pollinator activations let students see how bees and other pollinators keep an entire ecosystem working, and take that understanding back into their own classrooms.”

At the Learning Lab, BOOKR is holding the prize-giving for its Reading Competition from 15:00 to 15:20, with an $800 prize on offer for this year’s winner.

Dr Dorka Horváth, CEO & Co-Founder of BOOKR, said: “For fifteen days, somewhere between Abu Dhabi and Salalah, a child finished a book every six seconds. Day and night. That is what 6,813 children in Grades 1 to 8 did in the BOOKR UAE Reading Championship: more than 200,000 books, in two weeks, most of it after school. The thing that got them there wasn’t a lesson. It was a leaderboard, and a classmate’s name one line above their own. BOOKR Class is a children’s library that lives on the tablets schools already have, with a dashboard that shows teachers exactly who read what. Six children will go home from GESS Dubai with a prize, and we’re proud of them. All 6,813 go home with a certificate with their own name on it.”

Also on the floor is EduGarden 2.0, a classroom growing system built around resource management: three independently controlled growing sections and a propagator let students set lamp hours, water volume and planting density themselves, then track soil moisture, air quality and harvest weight through a teacher portal that builds graphs and time-lapses from their results.

Limitless Learning is bringing a five-metre mobile 360° immersive dome to the floor, where curriculum-linked missions combine immersive film, live storytelling and hands-on STEM challenges across topics including space, planetary science and ecosystems, designed specifically for primary-aged pupils.

TTS, Kidzink and VS Middle East are each recreating classroom-style setups on the floor, giving visiting educators a hands-on look at their products in a real teaching environment; Kidzink is also one of this year’s sponsors.

New Streams and Zones
This year’s conference programme introduces a new Design & Build stream, alongside Leaders in Education and Start-up Spotlight. Particularly worth watching is the new Early Years Start-up Education Zone, bringing together some of the newest names in early years EdTech on the floor for the first time.

Day Two on the Conference Stage: Inclusion and Personalised Learning
Day two’s conference programme puts inclusion and personalised learning at the centre, with Fati Siddique (GEMS Education) on early identification of dyslexia, Muzaffer Adak (İstanbul Bahçelievler Elit Gençler Kolej) on using AI for early detection and personalised learning, Ben Viljoen (Taaleem) on inclusive school leadership, Muna Hussein (DESS) on gamification in the classroom, and Ashkelon Govender (GEMS Wellington Silicon Oasis) on leadership in an AI era.

Zaineb Mahdi, Director of Technology & Innovation – GEMS SRI, said: “AI should help us understand our students better, not simply categorise them faster. Effective use of AI means identifying needs earlier, personalising support, and ensuring teachers remain at the heart of every decision.”

GESS Dubai 2026 continues through 12 November at Dubai World Trade Centre, Sheikh Saeed Halls. Registration is free for education professionals. Visit www.gessdubai.com for the full agenda.