Article by:
Bijan Hosseini
Those islands make up Dubai's iconic Palm Jumeirah -- a man-made, palm tree-shaped archipelago home to luxury hotels, pristine beaches, and nearly 80,000 people.
"It was a first," recounts Mansour, "an unprecedented project of that scale."
A civil engineer by trade, Mansour moved from Canada to Dubai in 1998 to work with a consultancy firm. He watched from a distance as the Palm project began in June 2001. "I became very curious when the first satellite pictures were published in 2002, showing a tiny piece of land emerging above the ocean surface," he says. "Then I decided I'm going to do whatever to join the company behind the work on this project." Read the full travel article here.