Protecting you and your digital identity: BEYON

PROTECTING YOU AND YOUR DIGITAL IDENTITY

Gulf Insider’s Charlie Cooksey interviews BEYON Connect CEO, Christian Rasmussen, during the launch of Batelco’s three new digital companies.

Marking another major milestone in its digital transformation journey, Batelco launched three new independent digital companies – BEYON Connect, BEYON Cyber and BEYON Solutions. With stateof-the-art solutions and professional services, the companies aim to cater to the current and emerging needs of today’s businesses in areas such as digital identity, secure communications, cyber security, ICT and cloud computing.

What is the drive and purpose behind BEYON Connect?

We wanted to take a step back and look at the missing pieces in society. Our mission is to create better and more inclusive digital societies for the people and businesses in the MENA region. To do so, we offer digital seamless communication solutions, in which transparency, security and efficiency are key elements.

Coming from Northern Europe, we found that a number of society-created infrastructures have large potential here. These infrastructures have been a driver of building better digital societies for Denmark and the Northern countries, which rank high in terms of eGovernment rankings in the United Nations.

Our response was to build a strategy pinpointing the missing elements in order to move up the ranks in comparison to the leading countries. We identified strategic areas focusing on citizen-centered communication, business-oriented communication, providing a digital identity for everyone, and later on utilize these with innovative smart cities integrations.

Charlie Cooksey with BEYON Connect CEO, Christian Rasmussen

Our mission is to create better and more inclusive digital societies

for the people and businesses in the MENA region.

Essentially, we want to build an ecosystem where you, as an individual or business owner, have any kind of digital proof or digital communication from your life—your family, wife, and kids, insurance, company, health organizations, your car or house—which is injected into your personal digital mailbox, which will be granted to you for free. Trust and data privacy are of critical importance and to this end, we have implemented the highest level of security and personal data protection in our platforms. You always know who the sender is, and the public institutions and business’ can easily find you, as your identity is verified through the secure digital identity we provide to our users. So, no more forgetting traffic fines or court notices. Also, if you have an important appointment like with your hospital or bank, you will always be able to find it in your digital postbox. No matter where you are and when you want to access it.

Is Bahrain your sole focus, or are you taking your solutions and services across the GCC?

While we are headquartered in Bahrain, we have agreements in place with a number of countries in the GCC and MENA regions where we will provide our solutions as new national portals, either on an identity basis or communication basis. We will be able to share a number of significant announcements over the next few weeks and months.

How do you see BEYON Connect evolving over the coming year and five years from now?

Over the coming year, our focus is on rapid growth and establishing lighthouse transformations within private sector businesses and public sector institutions. We have plans to announce subsidiaries across the MENA region during 2022. We intend to take

By 2030, all the countries in the MENA region have an increased

obligation to take care of the environment, fighting for people’s rights and equality between men and women.

the bottom out of the market, especially for identity solutions by providing highly secure, technically robust and commercially compelling solutions.

One of the main issues of digital banking is the privacy aspect. To ensure data privacy, at BEYON Connect, we develop products and solutions using industrialized methods and utilize the leading technologies in the field. We own the proprietary software, can do both cloud, hybrid and on-premise installations, and we can guarantee that the data stays within the country, even if you are moving to another country. This is something entirely new. Also, by developing it ourselves, we can be more flexible in the implementation. On the cost side, our solutions are delivered at one-tenth of today’s existing market fees which means we deliver the highest quality at a highly competitive price.

In the next five years, we intend to continue launching new products and verticals and rethinking how we communicate. Our driving mission is to continue working on how you, as an individual as well as your identity, can be protected.

Is there anything else you’d like to add or share for our readers to look forward to?

I think it’s important to note that we have a sustainability focus. By 2030, all the countries in the MENA region have an increased obligation to take care of the environment, fighting for people’s rights and equality between men and women. We see the support of these goals as part of our core values.

Bahrain is, of course, one of the higher-ranking countries in this region with regards to this agenda, but we have an opportunity to rank higher. We intend, with our products and services that support this national, societal shift.

Already this year, we are moving to eliminate paper-based non-secure communication as we transition into secure digital correspondence. We want to invest in a society where we focus on the whole cycle of sustainability through harnessing the power of digital. It has already been proven in other leading countries across the world and now we would like to elevate the Kingdom of Bahrain and the MENA region as a whole to reach their sustainability goals.

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