Tech News
The Future of Maritime Operations: Combining Technical Skills with BusinessStrategy
By Aleksei Makarov
When I first arrived in Dubai, I was struck not only by the scale of its ambition but by the clarity of its vision. What once was a desert is now one of the world’s most advanced and inspiring cities, thanks to the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and the continued national progress under His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In this spirit of innovation, I believe the maritime sector is poised to become one of the UAE’s next great achievements.
This is precisely the energy I see today in the maritime sector. An industry rooted in the Emirates’ history, but still waiting to fulfill its modern potential. From ancient pearl diving to historic trade routes, seafaring has shaped this region for centuries. And now with global shipping and marine technologies evolving faster than ever, we have the opportunity to reclaim that legacy and turn it into a world-leading force.
The idea behind Octanta Maritime Academy was born out of this vision. Our goal wasn’t just to create another training center – it was to respond to a pressing need. Too often, education and real-world maritime practice remain disconnected. Our team of experienced captains, engineers, and maritime professionals understood that to shape future leaders, we must offer more than just courses. We must offer mentorship, real-world perspective, and a foundation built on both skill and character.
One of the key challenges we address is preparing professionals for a dramatically changing industry. New regulations, digital ship management, AI-assisted navigation, and unmanned vessels are already shaping maritime operations. These are not distant concepts – they’re here now. That’s why we integrate emerging technologies into our curriculum, but always emphasize that behind every system, a human is still responsible. When lives and cargo are at stake, technology helps but judgment, calm under pressure, and leadership make the final difference.
We strongly believe that maritime training cannot be reduced to theory or online modules. Seamanship it’s physical, intuitive, and deeply situational. You cannot learn to lead a ship through a crisis over an online meeting. That’s why our programs focus on simulation, immersive exercises, and face-to-face instruction. From day one, our students are trained as professionals to lead teams, manage risks, and uphold the highest standards of safety and conduct.
Another pillar of our philosophy is bridging the gap between maritime engineering and business leadership. Captains, like military officers, don’t just execute – they manage people, make strategic decisions, and ensure operations run efficiently. This requires a wide range of skills: emotional intelligence, discipline, and the ability to think both tactically and long-term. We embed these elements throughout our training to ensure that our graduates aren’t only technically proficient but ready to lead departments, vessels, or entire companies.
Equally important is career direction. We work closely with companies and maritime organizations to make sure our programs align with actual industry needs. Our students leave with a clear understanding of where their skills are most valuable and how they can grow. Whether it’s logistics, compliance, offshore operations, or maritime innovation, we support each student’s long-term development, not just their first job.
The UAE is uniquely positioned to be a global maritime hub. Strategically located, deeply invested in infrastructure, and supported by a government that champions innovation, the country already excels in aviation and real estate. Maritime can and should be the next sector to shine on the global stage. With the right institutions, workforce, and vision, there’s no reason why Dubai and Abu Dhabi can’t lead in maritime education, shipping services, and marine innovation.
To young professionals thinking about a maritime career, I offer this: be adaptable. This is an industry that will look very different in five years, let alone twenty. The best way to succeed is to combine technical skill with a mindset of curiosity, resilience, and lifelong learning. You may start as an engineer or officer, but with the right preparation, you can grow into a strategist, innovator, or leader of an entire fleet.
At Octanta Maritime Academy, we prepare students for a mission. We are committed to excellence in what we teach and in who we help them become.
In contributing to the future of maritime operations in the UAE, we hope to do more than build careers – we aim to help shape the next chapter of this nation’s incredible story. One written on water, driven by knowledge, and powered by vision.
Tech News
Thermax showcases advanced desalination and water recovery technologies to strengthen UAE’s industrial water security at WETEX 2026
Thermax Limited showcased its advanced seawater desalination and industrial water recovery technologies at the Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition 2026 (WETEX), held from October 20 to 22 at Dubai World Trade Centre. Through its digital showcase, the company highlighted solutions designed to help industries secure reliable water supplies, improve resource efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
Thermax’s participation came as Dubai continues to strengthen its desalination infrastructure to meet growing water requirements. According to Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) Financial Annual Report, desalinated water production increased by 5.51 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching a record 37.57 billion imperial gallons. By June 2026, Dubai’s installed desalination capacity had reached 555 million imperial gallons per day, with seawater reverse osmosis accounting for 23 per cent of the total. These developments highlight the growing importance of efficient and reliable water infrastructure in supporting the UAE’s evolving water requirements.
At the event, Thermax highlighted its desalination solutions that help industries meet their water needs while easing pressure on freshwater resources. The systems use energy-efficient membrane technology to remove salts from seawater and produce water suitable for industrial use, with designs tailored to each customer’s water quality and operating requirements.
Through its digital showcase, Thermax also highlighted portable and containerised desalination systems that bring key equipment together in compact units. This reduces installation work on site, supports faster deployment and allows treatment capacity to grow with demand.
Ashish Bhandari, Managing Director & CEO, Thermax Limited, said: “Water security shapes where industries invest and how competitively they operate. Businesses need dependable supply at a cost they can sustain. That means planning water and energy together, with investment decisions guided by performance throughout a plant’s life.”
Beyond desalination, Thermax also showcased Advanced Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology that recovers additional usable water from the concentrated stream left after treatment. By concentrating the remaining brine, the technology reduces the load on downstream evaporation systems and supports more efficient industrial wastewater management. When combined with suitable additional treatment and crystallisation processes, it can also support salt recovery, creating opportunities to recover valuable resources from wastewater and promote circular water management.
Thermax also showcased industrial water treatment, wastewater recycling and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) solutions that help industries treat and reuse wastewater for suitable applications while reducing freshwater dependence. Complementing these solutions, Thermax’s EDGE Live digital platform supports plant performance through real-time monitoring, AI-driven analytics and predictive diagnostics, helping industrial operators identify potential issues early, optimise maintenance and improve operational reliability.
These solutions align with the objectives of the UAE Water Security Strategy 2036, which targets 95 per cent reuse of treated water by 2036. Through its regional office in Dubai, Thermax is focused on exploring various opportunities across the UAE’s industrial desalination, water treatment and wastewater recycling sectors, particularly within water-intensive industries such as oil and gas, chemicals, metals, food and beverages, and pharmaceuticals.
Thermax has been active across the Middle East and North Africa region since 1993, with more than 1,000 installations across its regional energy and environment portfolio, serving over 30 industries.
Tech Features
TrendAI™Expands Vision One with New Security Capabilities for AI Agents and Application Development
TrendAI™, the global AI security leader and enterprise business unit of Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), has announced new capabilities for TrendAI Vision One™. These include the private preview of Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery and expanded support for Claude’s Compliance API, which now covers Claude Code and Cowork sessions. Together, these services help enterprises identify exploitable vulnerabilities in source code before attackers do, investigate how AI agents operate, and maintain oversight as AI adoption scales.
The need for this oversight is growing rapidly across the region. According to research conducted by The Harris Poll for Dataiku, 62% of UAE chief information officers believe their organisation have more than 50 AI agents running in production, yet only 18% have a fully unified view of agents across platforms, data environments, and business applications. At the same time, AI is accelerating both how quickly code is written and how quickly attackers can identify flaws. Security teams therefore need to keep pace with AI adoption without losing visibility into what is happening across their environments.
The new capabilities extend TrendAI Vision One™ across both software development and AI agent activity. TrendAI Vision One™ Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery is powered by AESIR, TrendAI’s agentic exploit-remediation engine, which identifies and validates vulnerabilities, including zero-days. It also verifies fixes in customer source code. The engine uses purpose-built, multi-model AI architecture that relies primarily on Anthropic models and has outperformed single-model and agentic system scores on the CyberGym Leaderboard. Every finding is validated by experts from the TrendAI™ Zero-Day Initiative™ (ZDI), the world’s largest vendor-agnostic bug bounty programme. The Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery is deployed and operated on Amazon Bedrock from Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling the full workflow to run within the customer’s AWS environment
In parallel, the expanded Claude Compliance API integration brings Claude Code and Cowork session records from Claude Enterprise into TrendAI Vision One™. These records include prompts, responses, and tool calls, each tied to a verified user. It enables security teams to investigate AI activity in context, correlate it with endpoint, identity, cloud and network signals, and build custom detections for relevant agent behaviour.
Commenting on the announcement, Salah Suleiman, Managing Director, South Gulf, TrendAI™, said, “AI is changing both how software is built and how work gets done across the enterprise. Code is being written faster than ever, while AI agents are increasingly able to access systems, call tools and act on behalf of users. As organisations across the UAE and the wider region scale AI at pace, their security teams need to identify vulnerabilities early while maintaining clear visibility into what AI systems are doing and whether their actions align with organisational policies. With these additions to TrendAI Vision One™, we are helping organisations move faster with AI while maintaining the context, oversight and control needed to do so securely.”
TrendAI Vision One™ also continues to ingest activity logs from Claude Enterprise, covering user logins, administrative actions and configuration changes, as well as from Claude Platform, covering administrative, system and resource events. Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery is now available in private preview to select enterprise customers running on AWS, while Claude’s Compliance API integration in TrendAI Vision One™ is available to TrendAI Vision One™ customers using Claude Enterprise.
Tech News
ZWSOFT and Logicom Saudi Arabia Partner to Expand Access to Professional CAD Solutions in the Kingdom
The Strategic distribution partnership aims to accelerate digital transformation across Saudi Arabia’s architecture, engineering and construction sector
ZWSOFT, a global provider of engineering design software, has appointed Logicom Saudi Arabia as their distributor in the Kingdom, strengthening access to professional computer-aided design (CAD) solutions for local businesses.
The partnership combines ZWSOFT’s engineering software expertise with Logicom’s established distribution capabilities and local partner network to support Saudi Arabia’s architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector. The collaboration aims to help businesses improve productivity and modernise workflows through accessible, high-performance and cost-efficient design technologies.
At the heart of the offering is ZWCAD, ZWSOFT’s flagship CAD solution, featuring DWG compatibility, a familiar design environment and cost-efficient licensing. The partnership will help resellers, system integrators and end customers access these solutions and address evolving project requirements, supporting the Kingdom’s wider digital transformation ambitions under Vision 2030.

Naim AlHammami, Country Manager, ZWSOFT Saudi Arabia, said: “With the surging demand for advanced tech solutions in Saudi Arabia, ZWSOFT set out to find a proven, high-caliber distribution partner. Logicom Saudi Arabia is uniquely qualified to drive this expansion, backed by a strong product ecosystem and an established track record in enterprise hardware and software distribution.”
Fadi Karzon, General Manager of Logicom Saudi Arabia, said: “We are pleased to partner with ZWSOFT to bring innovative and cost-effective CAD solutions closer to businesses across Saudi Arabia. By combining ZWSOFT’s technology with Logicom’s local market expertise and strong partner ecosystem, we aim to empower our partners and customers with the tools they need to enhance productivity, drive innovation and support the Kingdom’s digital transformation goals.”
Through this partnership, ZWSOFT and Logicom aim to expand the availability of professional design software across Saudi Arabia and strengthen support for the country’s growing engineering and construction industries.
-
Trending12 months agoOPPO A6 Pro 5G Review: Reliable Daily Driver
-
Tech News2 years agoDenodo Bolsters Executive Team by Hiring Christophe Culine as its Chief Revenue Officer
-
VAR2 years agoMicrosoft Launches New Surface Copilot+ PCs for Business
-
Automotive2 years agoAGMC Launches the RIDDARA RD6 High Performance Fully Electric 4×4 Pickup
-
Tech Interviews3 years ago
Navigating the Cybersecurity Landscape in Hybrid Work Environments
-
Hospitality2 years agoGulfood 2025 30th Edition Kicks Off Today, Setting New Benchmarks in F&B Growth and Innovation
-
VAR11 months agoHuawei Nova 14 Pro Review: Where Camera Excellence Meets Ecosystem Evolution
-
Tech News1 year agoNothing Launches flagship Nothing Phone (3) and Headphone (1) in theme with the Iconic Museum of the Future in Dubai


