SteerAI’s Omar Hafa is Engineering Autonomy With Purpose and Precision

When Omar Hafa takes a road trip with his three-year-old, the journey is a little smoother than most parents would expect.

Thanks to his car’s basic autonomous features, such as autopilot and adaptive cruise control, he gets to steal moments of calm amid the chaos of snacks, questions, and the ever-repeated “Are we there yet?”

It’s a good illustration of how autonomous technology is reshaping transportation and the way humans interact with it. For Hafa, it reflects the promise of a future where cars serve people in safer and smarter ways.

It’s also exactly what he and his team are trying to do through SteerAI: design autonomous technology that serves people and industries, starting with logistics and defense.

Hafa is the Director of Operations and Program Management at the Abu Dhabi company, whose software and hardware kit can make any vehicle autonomous. His role is the latest step in a career that’s unfolded across countries and disciplines.

Born in Morocco, educated in France, and now based in the UAE, he began in industrial engineering, with a focus on R&D and innovation. He also did consulting, driving transformation in logistics and supply chain management.

In 2019, he pivoted to innovation management and the world of autonomous vehicles, which he says was a natural progression from his earlier work in logistics transformation. For five years, he worked with RATP Group, a major French public transport operator, developing the tools to deploy autonomous vehicles at scale for public use.

“Back then, it felt like we were building the plane while flying it,” Hafa jokes. The promise of driverless technology was ambitious, with most people envisioning a future where no one would own a car, while the technology, infrastructure and policy frameworks needed to support that future were still catching up. But the market, he says, has matured.

“Today, it’s not about bold predictions anymore. It’s about practical deployments, and delivering solutions for real needs,” he says. That pragmatism is what drew him to SteerAI. Intrigued by the company’s vision of homegrown, value-focused tech, Hafa made the leap—even though it meant moving to a new continent.

He integrated quickly into the energy of the UAE’s innovation scene and the warmth of its people. “Maybe it’s the sun, maybe it’s the ambition,” he says. “But there’s a lot of momentum there.”

At SteerAI, Hafa oversees everything from fleet deployment to maintenance, and from training to quality assurance. He also manages large-scale programs, guiding complex rollouts of SteerAI’s autonomous tech to clients.

What drives him is seeing autonomous tech finally fulfilling the promises made years ago. “Autonomous tech is finally becoming more accessible, opening doors to new markets and applications,” he says.

Hafa is optimistic about the future of autonomous mobility. “The algorithms and hardware will continue to improve, but the most important shift is already happening because we’re focusing on what people actually need,” he says.

In Hafa’s world, autonomy is about designing systems that enhance everyday life: prioritizing user needs over speculative technology, and solving problems with accessible, scalable solutions.

It translates into giving people back time, trust—and maybe even a bit of quiet in the backseat.