He is an Emirati activist, author, collector, businessman, Founder and CEO of Barjeel Art Foundation.
He is also a journalist who writes about regional politics, social issues, and economics. He contributes opinion pieces to “Emarat Al Youm”, “New York Times”, “Financial Times”, “Foreign Policy”, “Open Democracy”, “The Independent”, “The Guardian”, and “Gulf News”.
Al Qassemi earned a bachelor's degree in international business administration from the American University of Paris in 1998, as well as a master's degree in global finance and banking from the European Business School in London, where he graduated with distinction in 2004.
He is active in youth empowerment and entrepreneurship, having previously served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Young Arab Leaders Foundation's UAE branch for 3 years.
Forbes Middle East magazine named him first on its list of the "100 Most Prominent Arabic Personalities on Twitter”. He also received the Sheikh Rashid Award for Academic Excellence in 2006 and the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority Award in 2012, and "Arabian Business" named him one of the "500 Most Powerful Arabs" in the same year.
In 2008, Al Qasimi began teaching at a number of local and international universities, such as the Technical College in Dubai, the MIT Media Lab, Brandeis University in the United States, the American University in Paris, Boston College, Georgetown University, Yale University, and Bard in Berlin. Furthermore, he recently began teaching a course on the politics of contemporary Middle Eastern art in the Department of International Studies of the American University of Sharjah's College of Arts and Sciences in the spring semester of 2024.
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