Blockchain has likely been the single most trending word in recent years, creating an unprecedented buzz the world over. Initially viewed with skepticism and widespread mistrust, today the technology is making waves in virtually all sectors of the economy, attracting huge amount of investment from both governments and private industries, and creating the potential to revolutionize business, money and people’s lives.
In recent years Dubai has been making headlines for its plans to become the world’s first blockchain-powered government. The Dubai Blockchain Strategy was launched by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council, in October 2016, envisioning that Dubai becomes the world’s first-ever government to execute all applicable transactions using blockchain technology by 2020.
In line with this strategy, the inaugural Future Blockchain Summit was officially hosted by Smart Dubai Office, the entity recognized as the global first-mover in blockchain adoption, in partnership with Dubai World Trade Centre on 2-3 May in Dubai.
The summit brought together over 7,000 industry and technology leaders from across the globe, showcasing pilot projects and innovations from over 60 government and private organizations. In more than 70 engaging sessions, 60+ speakers deep dived into real-world applications across a range of sectors such as retail and e-commerce, creative economy, healthcare, transportation, education, food, hospitality and tourism, energy, fintech and banking as well as safety and security.
Furthermore, the Summit played host the grand finale of the Smart Dubai Blockchain Challenge, a startup pitch competition for blockchain-powered entrepreneurs, as well as complimentary workshops, such as Blockchain 101, designed to demystify blockchain technology.
According to IDC, spending on Blockchain in the Middle East and Africa will more than double in 2018 to $80.8 million, up from $38.9 million in 2017. By 2020, the global market for digital transactions will amount to $9.5 billion, with the global investment in blockchain technology poised to reach a staggering $300 billion. Through the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, the government aims to eliminate 100 million annual paper transactions, saving $1.5 billion annually in document processing alone.
This, however, is an ambitious target that comes with its own set of challenges, which is why SAEntrepreneurs spoke exclusively to the real experts in the field, and this is what they had to say:
“The vision of Dubai’s leadership is clear – to build Dubai as the Blockchain capital of the world. This is a commendable vision which confirms just how serious Dubai is very when it comes to Blockchain based implementations,” commented Moazzam Kamran, Global Head of Marketing, Avanza Innovations.
Moazzam Kamran, Global Head of Marketing
With that vision in mind Avanza is helping build the technology of the future that will not only transform the city of Dubai but help it carry the flag of decentralization globally. The UAE-based Avanza Innovations describes itself as “a tech powerhouse” with key products and implementations across Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Smart City Enablement, RPA and Customer Engagement. The company is part of Avanza Group of Companies with 18 years of market experience and 300+ global customers.
Kamran reveals that the company’s objectives are aligned with the Dubai Strategy – to be ahead of the curve with respect to technology and help the city move past disruption and into the future. “We do this by employing the best talent and latest technology to build future-proof applications,” he explains.
But these are not just words. The company has already put its plans into action, and has already been achieving some tangible results. Avanza’s Blockchain Platform Cipher was selected by Smart Dubai Office to deliver a Pilot Project under the Dubai Future Accelerators (DFA) program in February 2017. Through Cipher, Avanza has successfully delivered an immutable, agile and instant reconciliation and settlement platform to Smart Dubai Office for DubaiPay payment platform. For its part, Smart Dubai Office plans to roll out Cipher across all its existing 38 partner government entities, partner financial institutions and Departments to set up the first blockchain based building block within its financial plumbing.
“Avanza is helping the Smart Dubai Office build a Recon and Settlement engine for the city of Dubai, said Kamran. “Dubai’s department of finance had a manual/legacy system that would reconcile and settle with all its internal entities in up to 45 days. With our help the city of Dubai now has a Recon and Settlement Engine that can do seamless reconciliation for DoF through the transformative power of blockchain,” he added.
Another interesting project that Avanza has undertaken is for a city-wide emergency nerve center for the Dubai Health Authority. With the help of AI and Blockchain technology, the platform is designed to assist route in-transit patients to hospitals that have the facilities available to cater to them. “This is a very small example of how the system will be saving lives. The entire concept is that minutes can save lives and through our tech and health based systems experience we can build a system that will achieve this mission,” Kamran explained.
He believes that Blockchain has the power to transform economies, with virtually all sectors poised to benefit from its transformative power. Avanza is currently engaged in projects in the following sectors – Banking and Financial, Governments, Healthcare, Transportation and Logistics, many of which were featured live at its booth during the Future Blockchain Summit.
Commenting on the challenges ahead, Kamran said with objective of Dubai’s Blockchain vision for both public and private organizations is to embrace the transformative power of blockchain and/or work with consortiums to get a better grip of the technology and evolve their operations to better cater to a much more receptive consumer.
“Every system that is being build is to raise the bar on what customers expect from service providers, be it Banking, Identity, Security etc. – there is a massive opportunity to reshape customer engagement through blockchain.” He added: “The risk/opportunity with the decentralized movement is that it will completely disrupt conventional processes and if organizations are not looking to evolve they will face massive growth challenges in the near future.”
Another blockchain trend setter and exhibitor at the Future Blockchain Summit weighed in the discussion, highlighting the enormous opportunities that the technology has to offer. “Blockchain creates a new concept that you may refer to as the internet of value and trust,” said Eng. Saud Alsehli, CEO and Founder, ArabianChain Technology.
Eng. Saud Alsehli, CEO and Founder
“Its main power comes from the decentralized ledger which holds an encrypted record of all transaction within that network, and that record is incorruptible, immutable, and transparent to all participant, thus removing the need for any trusted third parties to act as an intermediary for any kind of transaction.”
This elimination of the so called “Middle Man” is what enables the creation of a service that safeguards both value and trust. “By removing those third parties, we remove friction and cost and increase efficiency and trust of services provided in both public and private sectors,” Alsehli added.
On the back of this, he is confident of the great potential for adoption of blockchain in the MENA region, and is quickly to point out UAE’s 2021 Blockchain Strategy, which was only recently announced earlier this year, alongside Saudi Arabia’s adoption of blockchain as part of Saudi Vision 2030, and the innovative initiative by the Central Bank of Bahrain for a cryptocurrency exchange in the Arabian Gulf Kingdom.
“We believe that by adopting the technology in MENA we will be transforming the region to be able to provide better services for its citizens, create transparent environments to attract investment, generate new possibilities and jobs, and support the overall digital economy of the region,” Alsehli stated. The young entrepreneur is convinced that the technology is here to stay, and that its full potential is yet to be realized.
According to the young tech entrepreneur, “Blockchain is reshaping the way we approach digital services, trust, third party intermediaries, law, economy and many other things and that’s creating an uncharted field of innovation yet to be discovered, such discovery requires flexibility, agility and risk taking and those qualities are better positioned with startups more than it’s in established business. The opportunities are huge and we are at the infancy of this technologies adoption.”
ArabianChain was established out of the same aspiration – to drive blockchain adoption in the Arab economy, narrates Alsehli who founded the company in early 2017 with the mission to catalyze the blockchain revolution in MENA region. Considered the first public and decentralized blockchain in the Arabian Economy, the company offers a platform for smart-contracts development, tokenization and decentralized applications. But before ArabianChain opened its doors, Alsehli encountered some major challenges such as unclear regulations across the region, lack of technical resources, and lack of awareness from the public and business sectors alike.
He continues to identify the need for greater and more widely spread awareness and the availability of technical skills as some of the key gaps posing a threat to the larger scale adoption of blockchain in the region. “These need to be addressed by the relevant institutions, schools and universities to cater to this new technology and its future demand,” he explains.
Besides finding the right talent, Alsehli and his team are now focused on building their own proprietary technology like the ArabianChain Studio designed to allow for easy development of smart contracts. Another one is Galaxy wallet – the first multi-platform, multi-currency wallet in MENA, and Palmex – a Digital asset trading platform which is in the process to be one of the first regulated platforms for active trading in MENA. The company has also recently established an ArabianChain Academy which aims to increase awareness in both public and private sectors about blockchain and the opportunities it creates.
The next blockbuster markets for blockchain technology will be Saudi Arabia and UAE, according to Alsehli, who says the two neighboring countries have the biggest potential in terms of both application and value realization. The company’s market focus currently consists of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan.
You can learn more about the Future Blockchain Summit on
