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Celebrating Emirati Women’s Day with Maryam A Hassani

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Zealous emirati women's day

On the special occasion of Emirati Women’s Day, Integrator Media had an exclusive interview with Maryam A Hassani, Co-founder & CEO at Zealous.

How did you start your career in technology? What was your journey like at the beginning, and how has it evolved over time?

After graduating from NYU Abu Dhabi, I started my career as a strategy consultant at one of the big four firms. My gravitation toward innovation and startup projects provided me with the opportunity to lead the Special Olympics Innovation Challenge and play a key role in the MBRIF Accelerator Program.

Over the years, I’ve supported more than 45 diverse companies in localizing and establishing themselves in the MENA region. I’ve always been passionate about the emerging tech ecosystem in MENA, from designing startup programs to supporting the localization of startups, and now, being a startup founder myself.

I’m driven by the mission to solve today’s most pressing challenges with technology. I believe that leveling the playing field in software development through AI will unlock substantial opportunities for entrepreneurs with similar goals.

Was there a specific challenge you faced early in your career that you’d like to share with our readers?

From the start of my founder journey, I knew I wanted to build a product leveraging emerging technologies, but as a non-tech founder, my ability to build and experiment was limited.

Initially, I explored working with regional software development firms, but any experienced founder knows that’s not the best approach. These firms are focused on delivering products ready for the market, but building a new venture is a journey of learning and iteration. You need to start with an MVP that addresses a significant problem and test it in the market. What I really needed was a technical co-founder with the expertise and the same level of commitment to the mission as I had.

Can you tell us a bit about your team at Zealous and the story behind the creation of Zealous?

My co-founder and I met at a leading international tech event, where we bonded over our shared passion for making professional networking intentional, easy, and meaningful in emerging tech scenes.

The mission of Zealous has always been to answer the question, “How can we leverage AI to help people?” Initially, it was about making it easier to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs in emerging tech markets. Today, we have two products in the market that are free to use:

  1. Zealous Social App for professionals to find, meet, and stay connected with connections on the go.
  2. Zaia AI Event Assistant for professionals to get personalized, real-time suggestions on how to collaborate with the connections they make at events.

As a bootstrapped company, our journey led us to develop an in-house AI code generation and testing framework, Zealous TenX, to help us meet the demands of building and iterating our software products in the most time- and cost-effective way. Using it ourselves, we quickly realized we were onto something significant with this framework.

Now, our focus is on supporting software developers and companies in developing products faster, reducing overhead costs, and maintaining quality code as they scale. We are still very much serving the emerging tech space, just from a different angle and addressing a more pressing problem in the market.

What initiatives has Zealous implemented to support the advancement of women in technology?

We are passionate about helping people connect better, especially in emerging markets in the Middle East. Women globally are roughly 25-30% less likely to network effectively and meet the right people.

I dedicate time to mentoring and supporting university entrepreneurship programs to encourage young women and aspiring founders to pursue their ideas. I also make an effort to demystify what it really means to build a startup. I wish someone had done this for me sooner. I share my learnings as a female Arab founder and my findings from the emerging tech space, with the hope that they can learn and be better off as a result.

How is Zealous leveraging AI to help women expand their networks? Additionally, what other functionalities and features does Zealous offer?

Both female and male entrepreneurs can benefit from Zealous’ professional networking products by connecting with others in the space. Creating intentional and meaningful connections today is challenging; at events with potentially thousands of attendees, it’s difficult to remember every face and every business card. We simplify this process, enabling event networkers to scan business cards or LinkedIn QR codes instantly and automatically save details such as where they met, the person’s role, their organization, and the intentions for the meeting.

Women generally need to know more about an individual before they feel confident reaching out or engaging in conversation. Our products take that into account. Although our products are not exclusively for women, the user experience and intention-based features are optimized to suit cultural and social norms.

Moreover, knowing that women founders don’t get as much capital investment (female-founded startup investments dropped by 64% in MENA in 2023), our code generation product helps them get a foot in the market with lower overhead costs.

What advice would you give to young Emirati women aspiring to careers in technology?

I would advise other women on their tech founder journey to focus on identifying a worthy problem to solve first, rather than starting with company setup.

The journey of any tech startup founder is challenging, from finding a problem worth solving to developing a viable solution for a large enough market that customers will pay to use. Given the time and resource intensity, I strongly recommend finding a problem that intrigues you and that you want to explore deeply.

Unfortunately, raising VC funding as a female founder is especially difficult, so be mindful of monthly spending and subscriptions. Also, make use of the support available, such as programs and incentives in the UAE that help reduce startup costs.

Spotlight

OPPO A7 Pro 5G First Impressions: Big Battery, Wider Selfies and a Focus on Longevity

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OPPO A7 Pro 5G puts longevity at the centre of the smartphone experience!

With an 8,000mAh battery, dual 50MP cameras, IP69K protection and a five-year smoothness promise, OPPO’s latest A Series smartphone makes a strong case for devices designed around longer-term ownership.

Smartphone launches have traditionally revolved around faster processors, increasingly sophisticated cameras and, more recently, AI. With the A7 Pro 5G, OPPO is putting another consideration firmly into the conversation: how well a smartphone can hold up over time.

At the centre of that proposition is an enormous 8,000mAh battery. Large-capacity batteries are becoming increasingly common, but what is interesting about the A7 Pro 5G is how little the battery dictates the physical character of the phone.

Despite the capacity, the device does not immediately look or feel like a rugged smartphone. The Shine Titanium review unit has an understated finish, while the alternative Surfing Blue introduces a more distinctive Dynamic 3D Wave Texture.

That relatively conventional appearance hides some serious durability credentials.

Built for longer ownership

The A7 Pro 5G carries IP69K dust and water resistance alongside military-grade shock resistance. Rainstorm Touch is designed to keep the display responsive even when used in heavy rain.

The longevity argument extends to the battery itself. OPPO says it can retain more than 80% of its rated capacity after 2,000 complete charging cycles, underpinning the company’s six-year battery durability proposition.

This matters because battery degradation remains one of the most noticeable compromises as smartphones age. Increasing capacity solves part of that equation; maintaining useful capacity several years into ownership potentially solves another.

Reverse wired charging also allows the A7 Pro 5G to supply power to another connected device, adding some practical value to that substantial battery reserve.

Selfies get the 50MP treatment

OPPO has also placed considerable emphasis on the front-facing camera.

The 50MP Ultra-Wide AI Zoom Selfie Camera offers a 100-degree field of view and can automatically move between 1x and 0.6x framing when additional people enter the shot.

It is a useful approach for group photographs, travel and increasingly video-led social content, where a wider front camera can make considerably more sense than simply increasing resolution. Ultra-steady video has also been included to improve handheld recording.

At the rear is another 50MP camera, using a larger 1/2-inch sensor that OPPO says captures 70% more light than its predecessor.

AI Portrait Glow, AI Popout and AI Remix Collage bring the increasingly familiar layer of computational editing into the camera experience, allowing users to manipulate images without moving immediately to third-party applications.

Five years of smoothness?

Underneath, the A7 Pro 5G is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 6360 MAX, accompanied by OPPO’s NetworkBoost Chip S1 and AI LinkBoost 4.0.

A 4,300mm² Glacier VC Vapor Chamber handles cooling, while software-based resource and memory management is designed to maintain responsiveness as workloads increase.

Perhaps more interesting than outright performance figures is OPPO’s 5-Year Smoothness Protection. The company says the device has passed its five-year smoothness testing, reflecting a wider attempt to position performance around consistency rather than simply launch-day speed.

Naturally, five-year performance cannot be established during a conventional review period, but the emphasis itself is notable. Smartphone replacement cycles are lengthening, making sustained performance, battery health and software optimisation increasingly relevant purchasing considerations.

AMOLED keeps the experience contemporary

The front houses a 6.57-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, up to 1,400 nits of brightness and a 92.8% screen-to-body ratio.

The combination provides the fluid scrolling and vibrant presentation expected from a contemporary AMOLED smartphone, while complementing a device otherwise heavily focused on practical considerations.

Warranty coverage also extends across the GCC, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, potentially useful for users who regularly travel between these markets.

The 8,000mAh battery will inevitably attract most of the initial attention, but the A7 Pro 5G becomes more interesting when viewed as a complete package.
OPPO is combining battery capacity with physical durability, thermal management, connectivity enhancements and longer-term performance optimisation. At the same time, it has avoided turning the device into something that visually resembles a specialist rugged phone.

BY: SRIJITH KN

A different definition of smartphone performance that may ultimately be the A7 Pro 5G’s more relevant proposition. Rather than asking how much faster a smartphone can become every year, OPPO is increasingly asking another question: how much longer can it remain useful?

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New Cequence & EMA Research: 94% of Enterprises Trust Their AI Agents Aren’t Over-Provisioned. Only 33% Actually Enforce It.

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Nearly every enterprise believes its AI agents are properly scoped. Only a third have actually made sure of it.

Today, new research from Cequence Security, the leader in application, API, and agentic AI protection, and Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that 94% of enterprise IT and security leaders are confident their AI agents do not have more access than they need, yet only 33% actually provision agents with least-privilege access. The remaining two-thirds run on broad standing permissions that are reviewed periodically, rarely reviewed, or never reviewed at all.

That gap between confidence and practice is already showing up in production, not a theoretical risk, but as incidents enterprises are living with right now. Among the organizations surveyed:

  • 65% have experienced an AI agent take an action outside its intended scope, including 29% with measurable business impact, including data exposure, financial loss, operational disruption, or reputational damage. Another 36% caught a near-miss before it caused damage.
  • Only 32% can detect and contain an out-of-scope agent action within minutes through automated means; 55% need hours and manual steps to respond.
  • In approximately 4% of organizations surveyed, the first sign of trouble came from a customer or outside partner, not an internal system.

The findings point to one clear story. Governance has not kept pace with the speed of agentic AI deployment, and that gap is showing up at every stage of the agent lifecycle, from how agents are provisioned, to how their actions are authorized, to how they are decommissioned once a pilot ends. Other key findings from the report include:

Enterprises Have Moved Past the Pilot Stage

The scale of deployment makes the gap more urgent. 46% of organizations report they are already scaling agentic AI across multiple departments and production workflows, and 79% are running generative and agentic AI simultaneously. Further, more than 92% report an increase in AI and bot-driven traffic targeting customer-facing applications and APIs.

Authorization is Checked at the Wrong Time, Or Not At All

That governance gap extends to how access is enforced in the moment an agent acts. Only 34% of organizations evaluate an AI agent’s authorization at the moment it attempts a specific action. The majority rely on periodic policy reviews or standing permissions set once at provisioning and never revisited, meaning an agent’s access can quietly outlive the task it was originally granted for, and keep working long after anyone signed off on it.

Abandoned Pilots Are Leaving Live Credentials Behind

Additionally, there’s an increasing risk in how enterprises manage agents that don’t make it to production. 31% of agentic AI pilots have been paused indefinitely, discontinued, or abandoned. Many were real deployments with real system access and credentials that were never cleaned up. Every abandoned pilot with live credentials is exposure nobody is actively watching.

External Connectivity Carries the Same Risk

14% of organizations allow AI agents to connect to outside tools and data sources via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) without restriction. Among the majority who do limit those connections to an approved list, fewer than half, just 49%, have a dedicated team actively maintaining and auditing that list on a regular basis.

Christopher M. Steffen, CISSP, CISA, VP of Research at EMA, said: “This research shows enterprises have moved well past experimentation with agentic AI right into production, and governance has not kept pace with that shift. The gap isn’t a lack of awareness; most organizations have policies in place and express real confidence in them. The gap is between what’s written down and what’s enforced when an agent takes an action nobody approved. That disconnect shows up most clearly in how organizations authorize agent actions and monitor them once they’re live, and it’s the reason incidents are happening at a rate the industry hasn’t fully reckoned with.”

Shreyans Mehta, Co-founder and CTO at Cequence, said: “The number that jumped out to me is the 92% being confident in their governance frameworks. Confidence like that is a trap; it’s exactly why organizations stop looking for problems, stop investing in monitoring, and let authorization checks lapse until an incident forces the conversation. This is the exact blind spot Cequence is built to close, giving security teams real-time visibility into what AI agents are actually doing and enforcing authorization at the moment an agent acts, not after the fact.”

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Dhruva to Rebrand as Ryan Across the Middle East, Signaling Unified Global Brand

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Dhruva will adopt the Ryan brand across the UAE and Saudi Arabia by the end of 2026, uniting the practice with Ryan’s global identity and international platform.

Dhruva, a leading tax consultancy firm in the Middle East, and Ryan, a leading global tax services and software provider, today announced that Dhruva will transition to the Ryan brand across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The rebranding will be completed by the end of 2026, bringing the practice under Ryan’s global identity and reinforcing its position as part of the world’s leading global-scale specialist in business tax.

The transition marks the next phase of the strategic joint venture announced in 2025 and reflects the continued integration of Dhruva’s regional capabilities with Ryan’s global platform, technology, and international resources. Clients across the Middle East will continue to benefit from the same trusted advisory teams, enhanced by access to Ryan’s worldwide expertise and service capabilities.


“The Middle East has been a strategic growth market for us for many years, and we have built a strong advisory practice founded on deep client relationships, technical excellence, and local market understanding,” said Dinesh Kanabar, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Dhruva Advisors and Vice Chairman, Ryan.

“The transition to the Ryan brand marks a significant milestone in our journey and reflects the strength of our partnership. By combining our regional expertise with Ryan’s global scale, technology, and international capabilities, we are creating an even stronger platform to support clients across the region as they navigate an increasingly dynamic and evolving tax landscape.”


“The Middle East is one of the most important growth markets for tax advisory services globally, and we are investing in the region with a long-term view,” said Tom Shave, President of Ryan’s European and Asia-Pacific Operations. “Uniting under the Ryan brand strengthens how we serve clients across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Europe—bringing seamless access to our global expertise, technology, and international resources through one trusted platform. This transition marks an important milestone in our integration and reinforces our commitment to the region’s future.”


Ryan will continue to invest in its Middle East operations, expanding its team, capabilities, and regional presence across key markets, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh. The practice provides comprehensive tax advisory services spanning corporate tax, value-added tax (VAT) and indirect tax, transfer pricing, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) tax structuring, research and development (R&D), and cross-border compliance.


“The response from our clients over the past year has been the clearest validation of this partnership,” said Nimish Goel, Leader, Middle East, Dhruva, a Ryan Affiliate. “From the outset, our teams have been integrating Ryan’s global capabilities in technology, specialized expertise, and best practices into the work we already lead in the region. Adopting the Ryan brand is the natural next step. It is the same people and the same trusted relationships, now carrying the name of the largest Firm in the world dedicated exclusively to business taxes.”


The rebranding will be implemented in phases during the second half of 2026, with signage, visual identity, and digital properties transitioning to the Ryan brand across the region.

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