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UNLOCK Blockchain Forum attracts over 500 attendees

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The UNLOCK Blockchain Forum which commenced today at the Ritz Carlton Hotel DIFC and which will continue until January 15th 2018 has proven once again that Dubai is a vanguard when it comes to attracting innovative experts, blockchain start-ups, and forward looking attendees.
Al-Iktissad-Wal-Aamal, the organizers of UNLOCK Blockchain forum were not surprised to receive more than 60 blockchain start-ups from more than 39 countries, as well as more than 40 prominent expert speakers, and more than 500 participants.
HE Dr. Aisha Bint Buti Bin Bisher, Director General of Smart Dubai, the office driving Dubai’s city-wide transformation delivered her keynote speech at the opening. HE stated, “Guided by the example of our nation’s leadership, we have learned to continually look to the horizon to start creating the future today. And while others were still debating the prospects of this new technology, we got to work. We are making Dubai the blockchain capital of the world, we have 20 public sector Blockchain use cases and it’s only the beginning”.
“Dubai took the forward-thinking approach and broke ground on the bold Dubai Blockchain Strategy, and by supporting events such as the UNLOCK Blockchain Forum, we are building a platform to share our learnings and prepare Dubai, and the world, for the future of Blockchain.” HE added.
Walid Abou Zaki, executive director, Al-Iktissad-Wal-Aamal stated, “When I first heard the word blockchain I knew it was a game changer, and we at Iktissad Wal Aamal endeavour to learn and understand our topics in-depth because we see ourselves as more than just event organizers. We are proud today to say that our efforts have met with success not only in terms of quantity but the quality of participation and the content being discussed. We believe that the next step in the right direction will entail creating the right regulations for Initial Crowd Funding ICOs as this will attract serious blockchain start-ups as well as position Dubai uniquely.”
The first session of UNLOCK took a close look into blockchain on the eve of its 9th anniversary. Renowned speakers such as Oliver Bussmann, CEO of Bussmann Advisory, James Wallis, VP Blockchain IBM, Dr. Abdulla Kablan Blockchain Advisor to the government of Malta discussed together which platforms would prevail, what forms of blockchain would take precedence over others and how the future of blockchain platforms would evolve.
The second panel at UNLOCK delved into the topic of how to create successful blockchain implementations. Zeina Al Kaissi, Head of Emerging Technology and Global partnerships, Smart Dubai, Andrea Tinianow Director of Global Delaware, Founding Director of Delaware Blockchain initiative, Vincent Wang Chief Innovation officer Wanxiang holdings China and other prominent speakers discussed examples of real hands on blockchain implementation projects and how those projects differed from traditional implementations. They also offered key learning’s and advice for those who endeavour to implement blockchain in the near future.
Ramez Dandan, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Gulf stated, “Investment in blockchain, across the GCC and beyond, is ramping up at an impressive rate, as organisations recognise it for the disruptive digital transformation technology that it is. Microsoft’s participation in UNLOCK follows its commitment in Feb 2016 to the Dubai Future Foundation’s Global Blockchain Council because we strongly believe in the technology’s immense potential for enterprises of all scales and industries. It allows them to share business processes with suppliers, customers and partners, leading to new opportunities for multi-party collaboration and, eventually, exciting new business models.”
Hon Silvio Schembri, Parliament Secretary for financial services and digital Economy and Innovation, Prime Minister Office Malta, provided a keynote on what Malta has accomplished so far with Blockchain. Security expert from DarkMatter Mr. Jason Cooper, Blockchain Specialist delivered a keynote on how using Blockchain can streamline government and cities securely.
The afternoon sessions at UNLOCK saw two tracks. Panel discussions centered on Blockchain and the utilities sector. Mr. Mahmoud Abu Fadda, Senior specialist Innovation and Future at DEWA talked about DEWA’s future plans to create electric vehicles charging using Blockchain. The session also included speakers from Sun Exchange and Ambrosus.
The panel session Dubai the next Blockchain startup valley, witnessed an announcement by Ralf Glabischnig, Managing Partner, Inacta; Partner, Lakeside Partners; Co- Founder of Crypto Valley Labs, Switzerland for the intention to open Crypo Valley labs for Blockchain start-ups and entrepeneurs in Dubai.
In parallel sessions, startups were showcasing how they successfully built Blockchain solutions to solve the problems facing our societies and economies of today. Blockchain startups ranging from Malaysia, UK, Russia, and even Estonia were among speakers in these sessions. Some prominent startups included Naked Technologies, Credits, threefold, Acorn Collective and Echarge. Other startups sessions centered on what Blockchain was doing for healthcare sector. Curecoin, medicalchain, and Etheal were some of the startups presenting.
Day One ended with Mr. Bussmann keynote speech that stressed on how one can stay ahead of the Digital disruption curve. As he stated, “The central business logic of today is being replace by Smart Contracts. First Blockchain movers are focusing on selective & existing cases into production with the highest benefit impact. The convergence of emerging technologies will blur the lines between industries in a highly connected real-time world.” He also gave many examples of what Blockchain startups are doing in the realm of trade, finance, and food supply.
The second day of UNLOCK Blockchain will see interesting panels on Banking, real-estate, smart city Blockchain implementations as well as more startup sessions.

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New Rubrik Agent Cloud Accelerates Trusted Enterprise AI Agent Deployments

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New Rubrik Agent Cloud Accelerates Trusted Enterprise AI Agent Deployments

AI agents represent the biggest opportunity and the biggest threat to organizations everywhere. Rubrik, Inc., the Security and AI Operations Company, today announced the launch of the Rubrik Agent Cloud to accelerate enterprise AI agent adoption while managing risk of AI deployments.

AI transformation is now mandatory for most organizations. However, IT leaders are constrained because Agentic AI has significant risks including hallucination as well as compromise by threat actors. Rubrik Agent Cloud is designed to monitor and audit agentic actions, enforce real-time guardrails for agentic changes, fine-tune agents for accuracy and, finally, undo agent mistakes. Built on the Rubrik Platform that uniquely combines data, identity and application contexts, Rubrik Agent Cloud gives customers security, accuracy, and efficiency as they transform their organizations into AI enterprises.

“IT and security leaders often don’t know what their AI agents are doing or how to undo their mistakes. Rubrik wants to help them answer: ‘What agents do I have?’ ‘What are they capable of doing?’ ‘How are they performing?’ ‘What did they do?’ and ‘Can I undo that when they screw up?’ said Bipul Sinha, CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder of Rubrik. “AI agents have the potential to cause 10x the damage in 1/10 of the time. With Rubrik Agent Cloud, we uniquely address this challenge by leveraging our leadership in data, identity, and resilience to help our customers deploy AI agents with peace of mind.”

Accelerate Enterprise AI Deployment and Resilience 

Rubrik Agent Cloud will offer comprehensive agent management capabilities that encompass the entire AI agent lifecycle – from observability and control to performance management and simulation. 

  • Agent Monitor:
    • Auto-discovers both infrastructure-as-a-service (Azure/AWS) agents as well as platform-as-a-service (M365/AgentForce) agents. 

○ Automatically discovers and maps active agents across popular agent builders such as OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Amazon Bedrock and other popular agent building tools. 

○ Continuously monitors agent activity and data access, and maintains immutable audit trails capturing context from data, identity, and applications. 

  • Agent Govern:
    • Tracks agent usage, evaluates performance against prompts, and gives teams the tools to control destructive/undesired actions.

○ Defines and enforces agent behavior, access, and action policies in real-time. 

○ A centralized tool to provide integration with enterprise identity systems—helping ensure secure, compliant, and controlled innovation.

  • Agent Remediate:
    • Announced in August 2025, Agent Rewind integrates with Rubrik Security Cloud to provide the industry’s only solution for precise time and blast radius rollback of undesirable or destructive actions.

○ Goes beyond observability to allow organizations to instantly undo unwanted or destructive actions, without any downtime or data loss. 

○ Selective rollback of agent-driven changes ensures continuous protection for critical data and systems, and immutable recovery.

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Yango Tech: Four Game-Changing Tools Revolutionising Retail Operations

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A wide angle shot of a robotic arm by Yango Tech in an industrial setup

Consumer demand in the Middle East is rising fast, driven by omnichannel shopping habits and the expectation of speed and accuracy. AI-powered automation has become essential for retailers to keep up. McKinsey projects AI contribute up to $150 billion to GCC economies by 2030, while the UAE’s retail sector is forecast to reach $74.87 billion by 2028. Yango Tech has outlined four key tools retailers can use to succeed in this environment.

1. AI Agents

AI agents are transforming retail with several capabilities. On the front end, they deliver contextually relevant recommendations in real time, tailoring offers based on location, cultural moments, or the weather, while conversational AI enriches the journey with human-like assistance in native languages. They also harness predictive capabilities by analysing unstructured data, from social media to past purchase behaviour, to anticipate shifts in demand and refine pricing or promotional strategies. Ahead of Eid Al-Adha, for instance, they might spotlight premium meat cuts or traditional Arabic sweets, helping retailers unlock revenue increases of 10–15%.

Beyond customer-facing roles, AI agents drive efficiency behind the scenes. Procurement agents compose RFPs, compare vendor offers, and execute sourcing decisions directly in procurement systems, saving up to 80% of manual effort. Replenishment agents forecast inventory gaps, adjust orders dynamically, and use computer vision to redistribute stock or reroute deliveries, boosting accuracy to 95% and cutting waste. Content management agents accelerate time-to-listing by auto-generating product cards, adapting content to trends, and ensuring consistency across markets. Pricing agents track competitor SKUs and demand elasticity in real time, optimising promotions and delivery fees to protect margins while sustaining competitiveness.

2. Smart Price Tags

Price intelligence has become crucial for staying competitive with today’s informed and price-sensitive shoppers. Dynamic pricing algorithms can review millions of products in minutes, optimising strategies at a speed human decision-making cannot match. By applying ML to track competitor pricing, market trends, and demand elasticity, retailers can adjust prices in real time, boosting gross merchandise value by up to 20%. These systems also factor in seasonal shifts, fluctuating supply costs, and product shelf life, while surge pricing AI manages delivery fees or order values during peak periods to protect margins. Digital twin technology strengthens this further by creating virtual replicas of stores, streaming data from sensors and cameras into pricing systems. This real-time visibility into shelves and product movement ensures that pricing decisions are tied directly to availability, enabling retailers to reduce waste, streamline operations, and maintain customer trust while driving profitability.

3. Computer Vision

Computer vision (CV) is redefining how retailers manage store layouts and product assortments by moving beyond static, manually updated plans. Instead of relying only on historical sales data, AI agents equipped with CV analyse real-time customer traffic and interactions to continuously optimize shelf arrangements and product placement. This creates store environments that adapt dynamically to shopper behaviour, boosting sales and improving the overall experience. CV also provides granular insights into store-specific conditions, from equipment to layout constraints, enabling smarter decisions. Beyond the shop floor, warehouses use CV to monitor dispatch accuracy, logistics teams track the condition of trucks in transit, and managers can oversee staff performance in real time. Paired with augmented reality, the technology also delivers richer customer engagement, allowing shoppers to virtually try on clothes or visualize furniture directly in their homes.

A wide angle shot of a robotic arm by Yango Tech in an industrial setup

4. Robotic automation

Robotics is moving from concept to necessity in retail. In warehouses, robotic pickers trained through behavioural cloning by human experts and thousands of real-world warehouse scenarios reach up to 95% picking accuracy. With the repetitive warehouse tasks taken over, staff can focus on higher-value work and boost productivity.

Autonomous delivery robots are also emerging as practical solutions for dense urban areas. Equipped with high-precision navigation, they operate 24/7 and cut emissions compared to traditional vehicles. They complement existing fleets by reaching locations where larger vehicles cannot, supporting zero-emission urban logistics. As battery technology and urban infrastructure advance, their role in retail operations will continue to expand.

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UAE’s AI market set to soar to Dh170 billion by 2030, driving MENA’s Dh610 billion Artificial Intelligence boom

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UAE’s AI market set to soar to Dh170 billion by 2030, driving MENA’s Dh610 billion Artificial Intelligence boom

The UAE’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) market is forecast to hit Dh170 billion (USD 46.33 billion) by 2030, according to new data from Grand View Research (GVR) in a study that underscores the country’s accelerating dominance in the region’s USD 166 billion (Dh610 billion) AI boom.

Close on the heels of the UAE unveiling its first Arabic-language AI model earlier this year, the new research by the California headquartered- firm reveals that the MENA AI market, valued at USD 11.92 billion (Dh43.7 billion) in 2023, is set to expand almost fifteen-fold to USD 166.33 billion (Dh610 billion) by 2030, growing at an annual rate of 44.8 percent.

“The Middle East, and especially the UAE, is no longer just an adopter of global AI technologies – it’s, in fact, shaping its own playbook,” said Swayam Dash, Managing Director at Grand View Research. “With sovereign funds backing innovation, and policies like the UAE’s new Strategic Plan 2031 leading the way with focus on utilising artificial intellegence in achieving greater financial efficiency for the federal government, the region is becoming a laboratory for how AI can drive both governance and growth.”

GVR’s report further highlights that nearly three in four UAE companies have maintained or increased their AI investments in the past year. Machine learning and deep learning remain the backbone of this transformation, particularly in healthcare, logistics, and financial services.

According to the report, the AI in Healthcare market in the Middle East and Africa, valued at USD 193.1 million (Dh 709 million) in 2023, is projected to reach USD 1.47 billion (Dh 5.39 billion) by 2030 growing at a CAGR of 33.6 per cent, while the region’s legal AI sector – currently at USD 43.3 million (Dh 159 million) – is expected to almost triple to USD 121.5 million (Dh 446 million) at a CAGR of 18 per cent over the same period.

“The release of region-specific AI metrics for the first time quantifies what many have sensed – that the UAE and its neighbours are at the tipping point of a generational transformation,” Dash added. “And the next wave of opportunity will come from specialisation. Sectors like healthcare and legal technology are still emerging here and hence the potential is immense. With the AI in regional healthcare market alone projected to touch USD 8.39 billion (AED 30.8 billion) by 2033, we’re looking at a decade of exponential growth. Likewise, the legal AI space, though currently small, represents a first-mover opportunity in digitising governance, compliance, and regulatory frameworks – areas where the Middle East can define its own benchmarks rather than follow global ones.”

The study also notes how the MENA region is further emerging stronger as one of the world’s most dynamic AI frontiers driven particularly by government-led digital transformation agendas, rapid urbanisation, and the rollout of AI-enabling technologies such as 5G, cloud, and IoT,

“Machine learning and deep learning continue to dominate adoption across smart-city initiatives, healthcare, and urban management ­– with the UAE leading the charge in real-world integration,” said Dash.

The full Grand View Research MENA AI Market Report offers an in-depth analysis of these evolving trends, uncovering how data, policy, and innovation are converging to redefine the region’s digital economy.

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