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QBURST DEEPENS MIDDLE EAST COMMITMENT, APPOINTS SHIVKUMAR SUBRAMANIAM

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TO LEAD FROM DUBAI

QBurst, a design-led digital engineering company powered by High AI-Q™, has appointed Shivkumar Subramaniam as Regional Head, Middle East, based in Dubai, UAE.  The appointment underscores QBurst’s strategic commitment to building a locally-rooted presence in the Middle East and strengthening its ability to serve enterprises and governments across the region.  

The Middle East represents one of the most significant growth opportunities in the global technology services market. According to Deloitte & MBZUAI, State of AI in the Middle East 2025 report, over 80% of organizations in the region feel intense pressure to adopt AI, yet nearly half lack the talent and technology capabilities to scale it successfully, and a third report no returns from their AI initiatives. Closing that gap between AI adoption and AI value is the opportunity QBurst is positioned to capture.

Shivkumar is a global technology business leader with over three decades of experience building and scaling digital and technology services businesses across the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and India. He has led multi-country P&L portfolios and driven large-scale digital transformation initiatives for enterprises and governments across industries.

The velocity of digital and AI transformation in the Middle East is remarkable. What’s truly compelling is the complexity and scale of the projects being undertaken—from smart governments to intelligent enterprises. This is where QBurst provides a decisive advantage, bringing a world-class engineering pedigree and practical AI experience. Our main focus is on embedding QBurst into the fabric of the region’s innovation ecosystem, building a team that co-creates solutions and ensures we are the trusted, long-term partner for our clients’ success,” said Shivkumar Subramaniam, Regional Head, Middle East, QBurst.  

QBurst CEO Arun ‘Rak’ Ramchandran added, “The Middle East is a strategic market for us with long-term growth potential. Governments across the region – from the UAE’s AI Strategy to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 – are building the foundation for an AI-driven future, and that is creating demand for partners who can genuinely deliver at scale. Building an on-ground team despite the ongoing geopolitical developments is our clearest statement of commitment and conviction in the region. Shivkumar brings proven depth of regional experience and leadership QBurst needs, to accelerate that growth and support our clients in building intelligent, future-ready digital platforms.”

Before joining QBurst, Shivkumar held senior leadership roles at Siemens, Satyam Computer Services, Mindtree, and Larsen & Toubro Infotech, where he helped expand regional technology businesses and led large digital transformation programs for clients across the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

A year since Multiples Alternate Asset Management, India’s leading alternate asset management firm, acquired a controlling stake in QBurst in a ~USD 200 million transaction, the company has moved decisively to scale its international footprint, strengthen its leadership team and bolster its offerings. The Middle East expansion marks one of the most significant steps in that growth journey, with QBurst bringing deep experience in delivering AI-driven solutions across Realty, Hospitality, Retail, Manufacturing, and Healthcare – industries that sit at the heart of the region’s economy.

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Yango Tech launches Industrial AI Agents to accelerate UAE’s digital workforce agenda

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Yango Tech, B2B technology solutions provider by Yango Group, launches a new business practice focused on developing and deploying autonomous industrial AI agents. These AI agents are designed to execute real operational tasks across customer service, analytics, compliance, and decision-making, serving industries such as fintech, medtech, e-commerce, logistics, smart cities, and the public sector. Yango Tech offers both ready-to-deploy solutions and a customizable platform for building AI agents tailored to the specific needs of each business. This new business direction addresses the rapidly growing demand across the Middle East for scalable AI systems that deliver measurable business impact, as the region accelerates toward a projected $320 billion AI economy by 2030.

AI Agents connect directly to enterprise applications and data sources, including CRM, HR and finance systems, allowing AI to act like digital employees with memory, execution capabilities and built-in security. For governments and enterprises building digital workforces and smart cities, Yango Tech deploys AI employees across customer support, sales, recruitment and debt recovery, delivering 95% first-contact resolution, faster hiring and up to $100K in monthly operational savings. Its Smart City stack enables digital twins, emergency navigation, mobility optimization and real-time urban analytics, helping municipalities accelerate decision-making, improve traffic flow, and reduce energy and operational costs through AI-powered city modelling and dispatch optimization.

In the medical world, Yango Tech reduces physician admin workloads through appointment transcription, smart search across electronic medical records, imaging analysis and AI and BI command centres. The solutions automate documentation, surface unified patient data in seconds, improve diagnostic accuracy and enable clinicians to treat more patients. In financial services, AI functions support front-, middle- and back-office transformation through AI-powered chatbots, smart search, credit scoring, anti-fraud analytics and workflow automation.

Commenting on the launch, Vladimir Razuvaev, Chief Executive at Yango Tech, said: “Enterprises today are under pressure to turn AI into practical outcomes. Our AI Agents were built to help organizations deploy autonomous digital employees that integrate securely into existing systems and deliver measurable productivity gains. With around 84% of GCC organisations adopting AI, the opportunity now lies in execution. Our vision is to help healthcare providers, banks, private firms and cities scale AI responsibly while strengthening performance, transparency and service quality.”

The launch reinforces Yango Tech’s alignment with the UAE’s national innovation agenda and broader regional ambitions for AI-led economic growth, smart infrastructure and digital government. By enabling sovereign deployments, local data control and enterprise-grade security, the platform supports the UAE’s vision for future-ready public services and knowledge-driven economies while helping organizations move faster from strategy to implementation.

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SHURE CELEBRATES INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA REGION

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In professional audio, the most important moments are often the ones audiences never notice when collaboration feels seamless and every voice is heard clearly. Shure continues to build on this foundation through a long-term approach to growth, led by women guiding strategy globally and regionally, and supported by an ecosystem-first model across the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

Rose Shure’s leadership drove the Company forward for decades, including global expansion into many countries. Chris Schyvinck, Shure President and CEO, has continued that vision, leading Shure into another century of innovation and progress. For more than 30 years, Shure has featured a woman in a key leadership position.

Shure’s scale and legacy reflect a century of consistent innovation and deployment. Over its 100-year history, Shure has developed more than 50,000 electronics products, with solutions sold in more than 120 countries worldwide and operations across more than 30 locations globally, supporting customers and partners across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia.

Schyvinck said: “At Shure, leadership is about building for the long term, investing in people, strengthening capability, and staying close to the real-world environments where sound matters most. As our teams innovate globally and deliver locally, we remain focused on all the essential features professional audio makes possible: better connection, better understanding, and better outcomes. Women across Shure play an important role in shaping that direction and delivering impact across our global and regional teams.”

Yet while sound continues to power the way organisations meet, learn, and perform, representation across technical audio pathways remains a wider industry challenge. Research continues to highlight how limited women’s credited participation remains in certain production roles globally — including findings that women account for only 2.8% of credited music producers across a large multi-year chart dataset.

Across the Middle East, however, the pipeline for future technical leaders is notably stronger. Recent UAE reporting and national indicators point to high participation of women across higher education and STEM pathways, including women representing 70% of university graduates, and strong representation within STEM and engineering education. This momentum reinforces the region’s potential to shape a more diverse future-ready workforce across technology-led industries including AV, enterprise collaboration, and professional audio.

In addition to all of the women worldwide who contribute to the success of the Company, Shure is also proud to work with many women in various roles throughout the industry – executives, performers, engineers, clergy, podcasters, administrators, educators, and others.

The Company is a proud supporter of industry initiatives such as the AVIXA Women’s Council and is also committed to helping engage the next generation of women leaders by offering global “Women Everywhere” Associate Resource Groups within Shure and hosting regular “Celebrating Women in Technology” panels moderated by Schyvinck spotlighting women working in various professional audio positions worldwide so others can learn from them and be inspired to pursue careers in the industry.

Ekta Shetty, Senior Sales Director Shure MEA, added: “Across MEA, our focus is on outcomes: clearer communication, stronger collaboration, and reliable audio performance across environments where teams make decisions and deliver experiences. Long-term growth depends on capability: supporting partners, investing in teams, and building consistency at scale.”

Building on this foundation, Shure continues to prioritise long-term, capability-driven growth across enterprise collaboration, education, government, and live production environments working closely with integrators, distributors, and channel partners to strengthen deployment outcomes and market maturity.

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TRENDS IN AI COMPLIANCE INFLUENCING HOW GCC COMPANIES OPERATE

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Across the GCC, national growth strategies, with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the UAE’s National AI Strategy 2031, and Qatar’s national roadmap, place AI at the centre of economic diversification. McKinsey estimates AI adoption at roughly 84% across GCC organisations, with a potential $320 billion economic impact for the Middle East by 2030. As deployment accelerates, regulatory compliance is a defining factor separating ambition from sustainable scale. Shaffra, an AI research and applications company building autonomous AI teams for enterprises and governments, sees six clear shifts reshaping how companies operate.

1. Regulation is accelerating adoption in high-stakes sectors

Government entities, financial services, telecom, aviation, and large semi-government organisations are moving fastest. These sectors operate at scale, face strict efficiency mandates, and function under constant regulatory oversight. Healthcare and energy are advancing more cautiously due to safety and data sensitivity. In many cases, the more regulated the industry, the faster AI deployment progresses. However, rapid scaling also exposes governance weaknesses, particularly where documentation, ownership, and oversight mechanisms are underdeveloped.

2. Compliance is prerequisite for scale

Over the past year, 88% of Middle East CEOs have reported generative AI uptake. Today, organisations increasingly require audit trails, explainability, clear data lineage and residency controls, defined performance thresholds, and enforceable human oversight mechanisms. With one in four Middle East consumers citing privacy as a primary concern, compliance is being treated as a post-deployment validation exercise; it is a structural requirement for scaling AI responsibly.

3. Sovereign AI and data residency are shaping architecture

AI governance in the GCC is being influenced less by standalone AI laws and more by data protection and cybersecurity frameworks. The UAE’s federal data protection law, Saudi Arabia’s PDPL under SDAIA, and Oman’s PDPL reinforce lawful processing and cross-border controls. In highly regulated sectors such as banking, healthcare, energy, and telecommunications, data residency and local control over models are strategic imperatives. Sovereign AI is evolving from a policy ambition into an operational requirement affecting infrastructure, vendor selection, and system design.

4. Human accountability is being reasserted

When organisations deploy AI without defining who owns the decision, when human escalation is required, and what the system is permitted or restricted from doing, they create either over-reliance or under-utilisation. Without clearly defined ownership and documented review controls, accountability weakens and regulatory exposure increases.

For instance, DIFC reinforces responsible AI use in personal data processing. High-impact decisions involving legal standing, fraud, employment, healthcare guidance, or public sector determinations that affect citizens need to involve human oversight, while AI handles speed, consistency, and automation of repetitive tasks. High-impact decisions should involve accountable human oversight.

5. Governance maturity slows deployment activity

Many organisations are AI-active but still developing governance maturity. Common governance gaps are structural rather than technical. Multiple pilots often run in parallel, tool adoption is fragmented, and accountability is split across IT, legal, risk, and business functions. Growing enterprises often lack a central AI governance owner, a comprehensive use-case inventory, consistent vendor and model risk assessment, and formal escalation protocols. Policies may exist at the board level, yet it is not consistently embedded into day-to-day operations. Addressing this gap requires governance to be built into workflows from the outset.

6. Continuous auditing is discipline

Studies indicate that a majority of ML models degrade over time, through model drift, hidden bias, or misuse vulnerabilities. Initial audits frequently reveal undocumented use cases, weak access segmentation, insufficient logging, and unclear review protocols. Effective governance requires compliance with international and local data residency rules, structured risk tiering, data lineage validation, access controls, bias testing, performance benchmarking, and defined incident response procedures. High-impact systems warrant quarterly reviews supported by continuous monitoring, while lower-risk applications still require periodic reassessment. Governance is increasingly measured through evidence rather than policy statements. Boards are asking for dashboards, logs, and audit artefacts — not policy PDFs.

Governance is being considered as part of AI infrastructure. Compliance frameworks are evolving into operational architecture embedded within systems, workflows, and accountability models. The organisations that will lead in the GCC are those that design governance at the same time they design capability, ensuring AI scales with discipline rather than risk.

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