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Autonomous deliveries for urban logistics: Zelostech’s fully electric delivery vehicle wins DHL’s startup challenge in the Middle East & Africa

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Zelostech

Zelostech wins DHL’s Fast Forward Challenge startup program in the Middle East & Africa. The five shortlisted startups of this year’s Fast Forward Challenge presented groundbreaking applications based on AI and automation that have the potential to redefine logistics and workforce efficiency while driving more sustainable supply chains in the MEA region. The innovative solutions ranged from strategic people analytics platforms to a collaborative mobility approach bridging the gap between manual labor and automation to fully automated robots and vehicles for intralogistics, mid- and last-mile deliveries.

“It was such an honor to be among these shortlisted companies who are all pioneers in their specific field. In the end, it was our autonomous delivery solution for urban logistic deliveries that won and that is already deployed in various cities in China and in Singapore. We have 3,000 vehicles on the road and have accumulated nine million kilometers of Level 4-autonomous driving and are eager to enter the UAE and wider GCC market, says Jason Wang, UAE-Country Manager of Zelostech.

The Fast Forward Challenge, now in its fourth edition, is a startup program organized by the DHL Middle East & Africa Innovation Center together with strategic partners. It supports startups that offer innovative solutions to meet the future needs of logistics and supply chains.

“Congratulations to the winner Zelostech. I am certain they will make a major difference towards shaping the future of logistics and I am very much looking forward to our collaboration,” says Irina Albanese, Head of Innovation, Middle East & Africa at DHL. “The candidates this year are really remarkable, especially in terms of the maturity of the startups and the innovative ideas and solutions that were presented. With our Fast Forward Challenge, we offer a platform for startups to showcase their groundbreaking solutions, receive ongoing mentorship, and forge valuable connections with venture capitalists. It is truly an ecosystem of opportunities.”

While some of the presented solutions vary greatly, they have one major thing in common: All five startups provide a solution to address current and future challenges with the world of work evolving.

This year’s program featured startups from around the globe. For the final round, the contestants took the grand stage of the Future 100 Forum during the 4th edition of the annual Investopia Summit in Abu Dhabi. Investopia is a UAE-based platform launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The platform connects the global investment community with opportunities in new economies.

In Abu Dhabi, the five shortlisted companies had to pitch to a panel of 9 prominent judges with a wealth of business expertise in the region, the industry, and beyond. The judges selected the winner, utilizing a set of detailed criteria to guide their decision-making process. The Fast Forward Challenge @ Investopia winner will benefit from extensive support provided by industry experts and consultants, including mentorship, trade license support, extensive media coverage, and a membership to the Ignyte platform to foster their business growth and development. Additionally, Zelostech will receive a Proof of Concept opportunity with DHL or Dubai South for a suitable solution fit.

The Fast Forward Challenge MEA 2025 is organized by DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation in partnership with Investopia, PwC Middle East, Dubai South, Logistics Middle East, the tech startup AHOY and various prominent startup business supporters.  

“It was a pleasure to host the final round of DHL’s Fast Forward Challenge during the 4th edition of Investopia. This challenge brought together an outstanding group of innovators and entrepreneurs redefining logistics and supply chain – an industry at the core of the new economy, which is the very essence of Investopia. We were also delighted to have DHL as one of Investopia’s Contributing Partners this year, and I am confident that this marks the beginning of a series of fruitful collaborations in the UAE and beyond,” said David Tabet, Chief Operating Officer of Investopia.

Mohsen Ahmad, CEO of the Logistics District at Dubai South, said: “We are proud to be part of such an innovative program that continues to evolve and improve year after year. The logistics industry is ever-changing, and participants are showcasing groundbreaking ideas that promise a strong future for the sector. At Dubai South, we remain committed to supporting initiatives that drive the advancement of logistics, further cementing the emirate’s position as a global logistics hub.”

“We congratulate Zelostech on winning this year’s Fast Forward Challenge. As we celebrate our fourth consecutive year partnering with this program, we recognize the strong contributions of startups participating,” says Dominik Baumeister, Partner, Global Transport & Logistics Lead, at PwC Middle East. “Innovative solutions are part of PwC Middle East’s strategy, and through this partnership, we have consistently seen real and tangible impact on the logistics landscape. We look forward to continued progress in shaping the industry’s transformation in the Middle East.”

“Big congratulations to Zelostech on winning DHL’s Fast Forward Challenge; you made us proud with your innovative approach to logistics. Your startup exemplifies the spirit of transformation that this industry so urgently needs. Initiatives like the Fast Forward Challenge encourage groundbreaking solutions to problems affecting everyday life, a mission we stand behind at AHOY. Every candidate presented a solution that shows their drive to innovate, and AHOY is proud of each and every one of you”, said Jamil Shinawi, Co-founder and CEO of AHOY.

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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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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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FVC and SearchInform Join Forces to Boost Insider Threat Prevention and Data Protection in MENA

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FVC and SearchInform Join Forces to Boost Insider Threat Prevention and Data Protection in MENA

FVC, a prominent distributor specialising in innovative technology solutions, is pleased to announce its strategic partnership with SearchInform, a leader in information security and insider threat prevention solutions. Together, they are committed to strengthening organizations’ defenses against data leaks, corporate fraud, human-factor related risks.

K.S. Parag, Managing Director, FVC:

“We are excited to welcome SearchInform to our cybersecurity portfolio. The company offers the most powerful and localized DLP on the MENA market. SearchInform solution stands out from the competition due to a number of advantages. The system can be deployed within a few hours, protects the maximum number of data transfer channels, provides smart content-based blocking for all controlled channels and also use digital watermarks to trace the source of potential leaks. SearchInform DLP supports analysis of data in Arabic and has security policies, tailored for requirements of local organizations, enabling timely detection and prevention of confidential data leaks. The solution leverages AI to monitor atypical data transfer channels, recognize graphic elements, transcribe audio into text, detect attempts to photograph PC screens with smartphones.”

SearchInform offers a range of products, including DCAP, DLP, and SIEM. All the tools are seamlessly integrated. Technical support is provided through a specialist assigned to the company, who has extensive experience thanks to clients from various fields.

Commenting on the Partnership, Artem Volodin, CEO SearchInform MENA, stated:

“We are proud to collaborate with FVC, whose expertise in the Middle Eastern market will strengthen our efforts to combat insider threats and data leaks. The region needs a comprehensive solution that will enable organizations to meet regulatory standards, including SAMA, PDPL, DCC, ECC, UAE Information Assurance (IA) Regulation etc. and global ones, such as GDPR, PCI DSS. SearchInform delivers tools for data protection and risk mitigation across all levels: FileAuditor secures file systems, DLP covers workstations and human risks, Risk Monitor addresses corporate fraud, and SIEM protects IT infrastructure.”

The partners are currently conducting expert training, partner enablement sessions, and are also negotiating the implementation of SearchInform products in local companies.

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