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STARKEY MARKS ‘BETTER HEARING MONTH’ WITH CALL FOR PROACTIVE HEARING CARE ACROSS MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

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As the world observes Better Hearing Month this May, Starkey Middle East and Africa is reinforcing a message that is both urgent and deeply personal: hearing loss is one of the fastest-growing health challenges of our time, and early action is the single most important step anyone can take to protect it. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.5 billion people worldwide currently live with some degree of hearing loss, of whom over 430 million have disabling hearing loss requiring rehabilitation. By 2050, that number is projected to rise to 2.5 billion, with over 700 million experiencing disabling levels. Unaddressed hearing loss already costs the global economy nearly US$1 trillion annually in lost productivity, healthcare costs, and reduced quality of life Giscard Bechara, Director, Starkey Middle East and Africa, said,

Better Hearing month is a moment to pause and ask a simple question – when was the last time you had your hearing checked? Most of us monitor our eyes, our teeth, our blood pressure. But hearing, which is fundamental to how we connect with the people and the world around us, is consistently overlooked. At Starkey, we believe hearing care should be part of every adult’s routine health check, not something people only think about when the damage is already done.


The challenge is particularly acute in the Middle East and Africa, where approximately 30 million people are affected by hearing loss and the prevalence stands at around 7.2% of the population. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 40 million people live with hearing loss, and that figure is projected to reach 97 million by 2050. The WHO estimates that hearing aid provision in low- and middle-income countries covers just 3% of actual need.

The hidden cost of untreated hearing loss. The consequences of untreated hearing loss extend far beyond difficulty following conversations. A landmark 2024 update of The Lancet Commission on Dementia identified hearing loss as the single largest modifiable risk factor for dementia from mid-life, reinforcing a growing body of evidence linking untreated hearing loss to accelerated cognitive decline. A 2026 study published in Cell Stem Cell further established a causal relationship between hearing loss and cognitive decline, demonstrating through controlled laboratory research that auditory deprivation directly affects neurological function.

A generation at risk
The WHO estimates that over 1.1 billion young people aged 12 to 35 are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices, including prolonged use of earphones and headphones at high volumes and attendance at loud entertainment venues. Research published in BMJ Global Health found that approximately 24% of young people using personal listening devices and 48% attending loud venues regularly exceed safe sound exposure levels.

In 2025, the WHO and ITU (International Telecommunication Union) jointly released a new global standard for safe listening in video gameplay and esports, reflecting rising concern that gaming environments represent an additional, underappreciated source of hearing damage, particularly among younger demographics.


“In our region, we have a young, connected population that spends hours every day with earphones in, often at volumes that would surprise them if measured. Add to that the ambient noise of our rapidly growing cities, loud social gatherings, and a cultural tendency to see hearing loss as something that only affects older people, and you have the conditions for a public health challenge that is building quietly but relentlessly,” said Giscard.


How modern technology is changing the hearing care conversation
For those already living with hearing loss, Starkey’s latest innovation, Omega AI, launched in October 2025 and now available across the Middle East and Africa, represents a significant leap forward. The platform’s DNN 360 Directionality system, the world’s first deep neural network-powered directional hearing system, continuously analyses the wearer’s sound environment and adapts in real time, delivering up to 28% improved speech intelligibility and up to an 8 dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio compared to previous Starkey technology.

Omega AI also introduces industry-first health and wellness features through the My Starkey companion app, including automatic respiratory rate monitoring, guided balance exercises, fall detection with caregiver alerts, and TeleHear AI, a generative AI-powered tool that helps users troubleshoot hearing issues in real time with 93% predictive accuracy.

“This month, we encourage everyone in our region to take one meaningful step toward better hearing. Book a hearing evaluation. Talk to your children about safe listening. Ask your employer about noise exposure in the workplace. These are small actions that can have a profound impact on long-term health, relationships, and quality of life,” concluded Giscard.

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ELUVIANT LAUNCHES FRONTIER VIDEO AI MODEL FOR ENTERPRISE SURVEILLANCE TO UNDERSTAND AND AUTOMATE REAL-TIME EVENTS

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AI company Eluviant, today announced the launch of Aurora Flow, a frontier ‘video understanding’ model purpose-built for live, enterprise-scale surveillance. The solution has already been deployed in live environments, and is capable of running fully air-gapped, across multiple cameras and in near real-time.

Aurora Flow represents a significant technical milestone by solving one of the most challenging problems facing scale commercial deployment of video intelligence: the ability not just to analyse what is happening across a sequence of movement over time, but to understand whether further review or action is required. This extends Eluviant’s existing platform that has been proven in production for years; an unsupervised self-learning engine that flags genuinely unforeseen events and a vision language model (Aurora) that has sat inside the live alerting decision for the past 18 months.

By recognising movement patterns and contextualising behavioural sequences as they unfold, Aurora Flow unlocks use cases that were previously out of reach for organisations operating in the world’s most secure and sensitive environments. Equipment tampering, unsafe climbing in dangerous environments, and dangerous driving are just a few of the behaviours that can be more accurately identified as they happen using AI video understanding.

Rafik Lamri, Regional Director, META at Eluviant, said: “We believe Aurora Flow is a frontier AI model in surveillance and a step change in what video intelligence can deliver, moving beyond detection and into genuine understanding and evaluation of behaviours and actions in complex live environments. It addresses a challenge that traditional video analytics has struggled to solve efficiently: the ability to understand what is happening in the moment when a single still frame is not enough. Things like fighting, climbing and theft have typically required human eyes to detect them accurately – now we can help operators focus on what needs their urgent attention by putting AI into the alert decision.”

Founded in 2017, Eluviant has spent nearly a decade proving that existing surveillance infrastructure can be so much more than a security measure. Today, organisations across every sector are recognising the untapped operational value sitting within their existing camera networks, driving a growing market for enterprise-scale video intelligence which is expected to be worth $30bn by the end of the decade. In the Middle East, UAE and Saudi Arabia lead the video surveillance market which is valued at USD 4.3 billion1.

“The Middle East’s enterprise-scale video intelligence market is experiencing high growth due to smart city initiatives, large-scale infrastructure projects and government-mandated security measures,” Lamri added. “With our advances in video AI, we are making it far easier for organisations to manage large numbers of camera feeds. Using Aurora Flow, we were able to reduce 4,000 potential events in a day to just 7 verified alerts – 0.2% of the total volume. But this technology isn’t just empowering operators to reduce control room workloads and respond more quickly to incidents; it is enabling them to harness their existing footage as a rich data source for decision-making across their operations.”

Formerly IntelexVision, the company has also announced a full rebrand, and today steps forward with a new name and brand identity as Eluviant that reflects both the rapid evolution of video intelligence in the age of AI and the company’s ambition to continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in computer vision for video surveillance.

Eluviant’s technology is trusted across a range of demanding operational environments, from retail and critical infrastructure to smart cities. Whether supporting loss prevention, anomaly detection or rapid incident response, its solutions are built to meet the needs of organisations that require reliable, scalable AI across complex, multi-camera environments in real-time.

Eluviant works with enterprise customers representing some of the largest organisations in their sectors, and more than 60 technology and commercial partners. With over 250 deployments across five continents, Eluviant customers include Airbus, DP World, Prosegur and Vodafone.

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PHRMAG AND THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIAL CONTRIBUTION – MA’AN PARTNER TO ENHANCE ONCOLOGY AND RARE DISEASE CARE IN ABU DHABI

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The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association in Gulf (PHRMAG), the region’s leading innovative biopharmaceutical research companies, and the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an, the Abu Dhabi Government’s official channel to receive social contributions, has announced a strategic collaboration aimed at enabling access  for oncology and rare disease patients most in need to innovative solutions and modern treatments, within an integrated framework aligned with the national health insurance system.

The collaboration brings together public and private sector to address a pressing issue, with a shared commitment to providing long-term impact, and continued care delivery for targeted patients. It further strengthens family stability resilience when facing health challenges, while contributing to broader social cohesion and supporting the objectives of the Year of the Family.

H.E. Abdullah Al Ameri, Director General of the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an, said:
“Our collaboration with PHRMAG represents a strategic step towards establishing a long-term and integrated healthcare system for oncology and rare disease patients in Abu Dhabi, reflecting our commitment to supporting key social priorities that matter to community members, particularly in the healthcare sector.

“At the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an, we are committed to directing social contributions and efforts towards creating tangible impact in the lives of the community members, including patients with complex medical conditions. This collaboration reflects a model of integrated roles between the public and private sectors, by leveraging the expertise of companies within ‘PHRMAG’ and unifying their efforts through the Authority’s platform, which ultimately contributes to enhancing access to specialised healthcare services, improving quality of life, and reinforcing the values of shared responsibility and social solidarity.”

The Authority will oversee allocation of contributions in line with agreed project milestones. A dedicated committee will also be established to monitor the initiative’s progress through monthly meetings aimed at assessing developments, providing the necessary strategic guidance, and reviewing progress achieved, ensuring effective collaboration and continuous knowledge exchange between both parties throughout the duration of the project.

H.E. Mohammed Abdullah Al Awadi, Executive Director of the Health System Financing Regulation Sector at the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said: “We are thrilled to witness the collaboration between the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an and PHRMAG, which will contribute to supporting our mission of ensuring accessible, world-class healthcare for community members, accelerating innovation and research within the healthcare sector, and advancing the early detection and treatment of rare diseases. This collaboration contributes to building a healthier society with longer, better wellbeing for individuals, while further strengthening Abu Dhabi’s position as a leading destination for innovation in life sciences.”

Sameh El Fangary, Chairman of PHRMAG, added: “As an industry association representing innovative pharmaceutical companies, we are committed to partnering with Abu Dhabi’s health and social authorities to ensure continuity of patients having access to treatment and care when needed. This collaboration with the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an reflects our shared ambition to co-create sustainable solutions that improve access to high-quality medical care for those who need it the most from oncology and rare disease patients.”

The partnership reflects Abu Dhabi’s ongoing commitment to strengthening collaboration between the public and private sectors, as an effective approach to addressing complex healthcare challenges.

-END-

About the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an

Established in 2019 by the Department of Community Development Abu Dhabi (DCD), The Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an is the Abu Dhabi government’s official channel to receive social contributions, dedicated to uniting community efforts and fostering a culture of giving by collecting contributions, directing them towards social priorities, empowering social enterprises, and promoting volunteering to build a cohesive community.

The Authority supports projects that address social priorities in health, education, environment, infrastructure, and social services, aiming to nurture a collaborative and active community by connecting individuals and entities in the public, private, and civil society spheres to support their communities.

Contributions made to the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma’an are transparently deployed in full to social projects led by key partners meaning benefactors can maximise the impact their funds have in driving community engagement and providing access to essential resources, programmes, and funding for organisations across Abu Dhabi to achieve their Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainable development goals.

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UNGOVERNED AI AGENTS AND SOPHISTICATED DEEPFAKES POSE CRITICAL THREATS FOR THE UAE & SAUDI ARABIA ORGANISATIONS, NEW KNOWBE4 RESEARCH WARNS

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KnowBe4, the global leader in digital workforce security, securing both AI agents and humans, today announced the launch of its new research report, “From Agentic Risk to Human Wins: Building a Culture of Security in the Era of Agentic AI.” The findings expose a dangerous reality for modern organisations in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia: autonomous AI tools are expanding the corporate attack surface faster than security teams can implement guardrails.

With agentic AI now widely embedded in day-to-day work, 84% of cybersecurity leaders in the UAE & Saudi Arabia report that AI agents are already taking actions within organisational workflows. However, a lack of governance is leaving organisations exposed; the report shows that around 1 in every 4 organisations (24%) report their use of AI is unapproved or ungoverned. This unmanaged “Shadow AI” effectively operates as an invisible layer of shadow employees handling sensitive organisational data without oversight.

Key Findings from the Report:

  • 88% of employees in the UAE & Saudi Arabia say that deepfake voice and video content is now so realistic it is impossible to know what to trust and 52% openly admit they could be tricked by a deepfake scam at work.
  • More than half (54%) of cybersecurity leaders in the UAE & Saudi Arabia report that mistakes during everyday work have had the greatest impact on their organisation’s cybersecurity in the past 12 months. Compounding this, 44% of employees acknowledge that time pressures and workplace distractions actively drive them to make critical security mistakes, even when they know the safe protocol.
  • 36% of cybersecurity leaders in the UAE & Saudi Arabia identify AI-enabled attacks as a key driver of future human-related cybersecurity risks.
  • 41% of employees reported that they commonly source their own agentic AI tools where options are unavailable or restrictive, leaving organisations vulnerable to cyberattacks. Concurrently, 52% of cybersecurity leaders report that the use of unsanctioned software and AI apps has actively impacted their security posture over the past 12 months.
  • Although 76% of security leaders feel “very well prepared” to handle unexpected or emerging AI-driven threats over the next year, 84% of them confirmed that improvements are still needed to ensure AI tools and agents operate within organization’s security policies and approved risk limits.

The report shows that organisations making progress are those who prioritise cybersecurity as a culture over a mere function, seamlessly incorporating secure behaviours into daily work. These organisations are creating environments where employees feel safe reporting mistakes, with 82% of employees agreeing.

“Cybersecurity has entered a volatile phase where organisations are trying to secure a hybrid human and AI workforce that’s changing more quickly than security leaders can keep up,” said Dr. Martin Kraemer, CISO Advisor at KnowBe4. “Attackers are moving at machine speed, using attacks such as deepfakes to target employees and prompt injections to hijack AI agents. Leaving almost a quarter of your corporate AI usage ungoverned is a massive open invitation to threat actors.”

The “From Agentic Risk to Human Wins: Building a Culture of Security in the Era of Agentic AI” report concludes that achieving “Wins” requires organisations to design systems that guide behaviour, build supportive cultures, and shift from tracking failures to reinforcing positive actions, and extending a security-first mindset across both AI agents and humans.

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