SME Advisor 139

IoT

Cognitive Programming

ISSUE 139 MONTHLY FOCUS: THE FUTURE

Happy employees are 12% more productive

Happiness is critical for productivity and employee benefits are rightly seen as key drivers for employee happiness. At Bupa Global, we offer cost-containment options across a tiered range of business health insurance plans to suit the needs of your business.

So, you can help protect the people who protect your business.

To know more call our hotline 16816 or visit bupaglobal.com/egypt Bupa Egypt Insurance SAE, a company incorporated in Egypt (Commercial Registry No: 67829) whose head office and legal domicile is at Building 55, Street 18, Maadi, Cairo, Egypt, with issued capital of EGP 60 million. Bupa Egypt Insurance SAE is regulated under law no. 10 for year 1981 and its executive regulations hold Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) license under number 20 for year 2004. Bupa Egypt Insurance SAE operates under the trading name of ‘Bupa Global’.

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SME Advisor Middle East is aimed at business owners and senior executives across the GCC. Armed with practical advice, it has been highlighting key business issues for the small and medium enterprise segment since its launch in 2005.

The magazine addresses real issues faced by business decision makers, without resorting to jargon.

We understand that often, in small and medium enterprises, specialist business decisions are made by the owners and not by an army of c-level executives. At the same time, our content is equally relevant and useful for specialist, senior executives in mid-level enterprises.

The magazine style is consumer, conversational and colourful.

From the web

Calling hardware start-ups to enrol at startAD

The programme is open exclusively to start-ups within the hardware space and is free of charge to accepted teams.

Participants will have the opportunity to build their prototype at Al Warsha, the startAD lab equipped with the latest in prototyping tools, including 3D printers, laser cutters, PCB Printers and an assortment of hand tools along with guidance from startAD’s innovation engineer. “There is a growing interest in this space. We look forward to making Abu Dhabi the centre for innovation in hardware and to help start-ups graduating from the programme create global impact,” said Ramesh Jagannathan, Managing Director of startAD and Vice Provost for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at NYU Abu Dhabi.

To lead more, please visit: vl.startad.ae.

Co Founder and CEO Nadeem Hood

Co Founder and COO Georgina Larsen

Editor in Chief Rushika Bhatia rushika@cpibusiness.net

Design Team Solomon Arthur solomon@cpibusiness.net Juzer Karbalai juzer@cpibusiness.net

Video Producer Murtaza Yousuf murtaza@cpibusiness.net Relationship Manager Freshia Mistry freshia@cpibusiness.net Web Developer Aneel Sarwar aneel@cpibusiness.net

Published By: CPI Business FZ LLC Office 111, Building 4 Dubai Media City Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Assistant Video Producer Farzan Akmal farzan@cpibusiness.net

Top honour for Khalifa University of Science and Technology The very prestigious academic institution Khalifa University of Science and Technology was recently ranked among the top 250 engineering and technology universities across the world.

“This achievement reinforces Khalifa University of Science and Technology’s leading position both locally and regionally and a continuation of what has been previously achieved, especially with regards to the world rankings,” said Dr Tod Laursen, Interim President of Khalifa University of Science and Technology.

Event Coordinator Zainab Murtaza zainab@cpibusiness.net Printed by Print Well Printing Press Contact Details: Tel: +971 4 433 2446 Email: info@cpibusiness.net Web: www.cpibusiness.net

SME Advisor ME

© Copyright 2017 CPI Business.

All rights reserved.

While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

To read more, please visit: http://www.kustar.ac.ae/.

Renowned BNI programme launches women-only chapter

Business Network International (BNI) is the world’s largest business networking and referral organisation with 14 chapters just based out of the UAE, comprising 475 members.

The chapter has officially been open for nine weeks and already has 34 members. President Katie Steele said of the launch of BNI Evergreen; “The fact that the BNI chose the UAE to launch the world’s first women’s-only chapter speaks volumes about the calibre of businesswomen in the region from all industries. I feel very honoured to have been asked to help set-up the chapter and lead it in its first year of growth.”

To read more, please visit: http://www.bni.ae/.

Editor’s Note

RUSHIKA BHATIA EDITOR

A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE We are at a critical juncture in the evolution of business, with diverse and complex factors posing to disrupt the way we work, live and interact with one another.

Considering this, the last few editions of SME Advisor, as well as our flagship SME Beyond Borders annual conference, focus to provide a framework for thinking about the future. Our aim was to offer an extensive coverage of disruptive technologies and devote undivided attention to factors shaping the future of business. To accomplish this, we’ve been constantly speaking to businesses, futurists and industry experts to share future directions.

As you flip through the pages, you’ll see that they paint such an ambitious and exciting vision of the future. And rightly so because conversations like flying cars and digital assistants weren’t even on our radar four years ago.

That’s probably because human tendency is to reflect on the past to predict the future. If there’s one lesson that we’ve learnt over the past few months, it is that no matter how tempting it is to set your strategy based on historical facts, the key is making a habit of looking ahead.

Through all our engagements this year, we hope we’ve been successful in stimulating a meaningful dialogue on the challenges and opportunities that confront us as a community during the next four years.

Now, it’s up to you to ask the questions: how can we learn from it? How can we implement it? How do we piece it all together to make sense?

Ultimately, answering these questions and the quest to seize the opportunities of the future, is what will bring – and keep us – together.

Enjoy reading this issue of SME Advisor and do get in touch to share your perspectives of the future!

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Contents

Economist’s view 020/ Future perspectives: where we’re headed 024/ Using technology for good

#MeetTanmay 028/ Meet Tanmay Bakshi - 14 year old genius

Future of business 034/ Redefining the start-up life cycle - Area 2071

VIP majlis

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BULKWHIZ ADDRESSES EVERY CHALLENGE WITHIN THE E-COMMERCE EXPERIENCE TO HELP ESTABLISH A RECURRING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP.

040/ Gender Parity: are we there yet?

Top change makers

Industry focus

052/ A new hack for marketing

046/ VAT in the UAE - impact on cashflow

Infographic of the month 050/ Counting down to the VAT deadline

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WHETHER YOU REALISE IT OR NOT, YOUR LIFE IS ALREADY BEING SHAPED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN GENERAL.

058/ Servicing the needs of a new-age consumer 064/ Setting benchmarks for a new paradigm in aviation 068/ Grocery shopping made simple 072/ A socially-driven financial solution 076/ Health beyond borders

Organisation & structure 080/ A glimpse into the future of work 086/ The first step in funding

Technologies of the future 090/ Getting practical about Blockchain

Invention of the month 096/ Ingenious invention of the month: Tribalingual.com

SME Beyond Borders 090/ A preview of our flagship event

Welcome Tanmay to Dubai - for his first speaking appearance ever.

28 20

A glimpse into four years from now.

64 This SME is flying high with it’s unique offering...

76

Are you ready for a healthcare evoloution? This SME is stirring things up.

Area 2071 shares a new perspective on the start-up lifecycle...

24 Are we missing the obvious with new-age technologies?

34

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CONTENT CURATORS Presenting this month’s portfolio of industry specialists and thought leaders, who played a critical role in producing the feature content of our magazine and ensuring that we were more topical than ever.

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MOUSTAFA MAHMOUD FOUNDER AND CEO, COGNITEV

““ BILL ANDERSON PARTNER, ARGENT GULF CONSULTING

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My advice to entrepreneurs is to build a product and get significant traction before thinking of raising any external finance.

VAT demands that you know your business, its processes and be flexible enough to manage any changes in a way you have not needed to do before.”

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““ SAMY EL SHEIKH ASSOCIATE SMELAW.COM

The Seed Round is a very critical step for a business as it marks its graduation from a project that the founders are passionate about to a business others believe in.

““ BANA SHOMALI FOUNDER SERVICEMARKET

We believe that it’s only a matter of time before people are booking anything they need online, with a technology that’s integrated into their homes.

““ SONAL SODHA FOUNDER AND COE, ACIVVA CONSULTANCY

The future of work is being defined by a new breed of workers who are tapping into algorithm matching platforms to turn their skills (and spare time) into new income streams.

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FUTURE PERSPECTIVES: WHERE WE’RE HEADED

In line with our SME Beyond Borders – 4X conference, the team at SME Advisor felt compelled to assess the top trends that we think will have a major impact in four years to come. Here’s our two cents on what to expect in the future…

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STAYING HUMAN, IN THE WORLD OF AI

In four years, i.e. by 2021, most processes will be automated and probably more intelligent in processing tasks. So, the challenge is how do we keep up? Empathy has been a huge conversation and will be a differentiating factor for companies in how they deal with customers.

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FOCUSING ON RENEWABLE ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY ON A MICRO-LEVEL

This will no longer be a mandate on a citywide or country level. Neighbourhoods, local businesses and even households will need to get prudent about energy consumption. We will see products and services within these areas move to the forefront.

A DEEPER COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION

A focus on education is nothing new and this is something that has received increasing attention over the past few years. The fourth industrial revolution, however, has made this one of the most critical areas. As labour markets get disrupted rapidly by technology, there is an urgency to revamp traditional school systems. Experts suggest skills-based training is what will help the new generation thrive in the age of AI. Research by the World Economic Forum highlights that more than one-third of the skillsets required by 2020 don’t even exist today. In fact, Bill Gates recently pledged US$ 1.7 billion to fix the US education system in light of these facts.

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FROM MANUFACTURING TO ‘BIOFACTURING’

TECHNOLOGY WILL DRIVE HUMANITARIAN INITIATIVES

ELIMINATING INEQUALITY WITH DIGITAL LITERACY

Genetic engineering is another area that has seen a significant amount of research and investment. Yet, it hasn’t fully come into the spotlight. In four years, we predict this becoming a major force - especially in areas like agriculture, where plant-breeding can improve crop yield and reduce genetic bottlenecks. Speaking of other areas of biofacturing, Mike Moradi, Co-Founder and CEO, Sensulin, and Lin Yang, Founder and President, Innovation Ideas Institute (3i), in their article on weforum.org, explain: “Perhaps the single most disruptive change will follow developments in genetic engineering, as bacteria, algae and other cells become the factories of tomorrow.

Tomorrow, products like automobile frames may be “woven” from graphene and spider silk or skyscraper frames grown from bedrock to the clouds by an array of microscopic creatures with little human intervention.”

Social impact driven by technology will surpass any economic or business impact.

In light of recent natural disasters, there has been a stark realisation that technologies like drones and satellite surveillance can help provide aid at a significantly faster rate than ever before. Not just that. Even simple mobile technology can play a pivotal role in humanitarian emergencies by enabling cash transfers or boosting connectivity.

In emerging countries like Indonesia, digital literacy is at the forefront of the country’s agenda as they improve access to services like banking, online learning and so on.

In fact, online learning programmes are reaching a demographic that has never been tapped before raising awareness about hygiene, healthcare and basic financial management.

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Using technology

for good

We often associate and measure the impact of new technologies in terms of the commercial benefit they can yield. But, what about the scale of social impact they can bring to our lives? Are we doing it all the wrong way? Alok Medikepura Anil, Founder and Director, Next Big 3D, has a refreshing take on the subject…

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nnovation has always had a top down approach to solving problems. The top-level management are the first to benefit from new technological advances at the workplace. This is a trend which must change. Added advantages due to technological advances need to impact the masses and be a tool to bridge economic gaps between the rich and the poor.

Inclusive growth is the need of the hour to ensure that the gaps in economic disparity are closed so that countries maintain strong GDP per capita growth rates. Technology has had exponential growth in the past decade and is playing a key role in the lives of today’s millennials.

The way we communicate, entertain ourselves and work, has changed for the good, thanks to technological advances; is what an average city based millennial would say today. Are the technological advances that we enjoy, endorse and help bring to the market, exclusive to the rich and privileged? Or should we be deploying

these technological advances to uplift the strata at the bottom of the pyramid?

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are buzzwords used today in coffeeshop conversations on self-driving cars. In our quest to achieve singularity, where man and machine are one: are we forgetting to focus our technology to solve a much larger and pressing real world problem – food shortage? Satellite image data along with predictive analytical tools could potentially help farmers foresee disease onset and give governments a heads up on an approaching season of drought. AI and machine learning can thus reduce the burden for the farmer in the fields and help governments better handle the global food crisis.

Nanotechnology is constantly diminishing the size of our computer chips and ensuring new innovations in materials which are lightweight and strong for space applications. More importantly, nanotechnology can help solve a macro problem in developing and underdeveloped countries – provide drinkable water to those

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are buzzwords used today in coffee-shop conversations on self-driving cars.

02. We have reached an inception point and the wind is blowing in favour of renewable sources such as solar, thanks to comparative per-unit energy generation prices with non-renewable coal.

who lack it. Nanotechnology solutions can help create a low-cost filtration membrane system to make water drinkable and disease free, available across the world, even in the remotest regions. This technology can significantly multiply the philanthropic work of organisations like the United Nations.

Biotech advances from billions of dollars spent on research and development, are limited to the four walls of Fortune 500 biotech companies. Even in instances of hybrid seeds from biotech research, known to achieve higher yield and being disease resistant, the common farmer views it as a double-edged sword. Expensive prices of seeds and difficulty to access such products keep the overall benefit to society, low.

Governments should invest a considerable percentage of our taxes into biotech research, specifically, to solve farming problems. This would be an investment for a better future and a reduced burden for

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tomorrow’s generations who could otherwise face soaring prices for food from expensive genetically modified seeds sold by large corporations. Energy storage is suddenly the need of the hour thanks to the fast growth of solar technology. Solar panels have been around for decades but a recent drop in production prices has made countries rethink their energy choices.

We have reached an inception point and the wind is blowing in favour of renewable sources such as solar, thanks to comparative per-unit energy generation prices with non-renewable coal. Supply and demand is however a big issue, since the sun shines 10-12 hours a day, but energy consumption is 24/7. Governments must equip all power grids, urban and rural, to accept electricity generated from rooftop solar panels and offer low-interest carbon tax savings benefits for those who move to solar energy. This will push the sector and encourage mass

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Biotech advances from billions of dollars spent on research and development, are limited to the four walls of Fortune 500 biotech companies.

adoption. Large barren, unused farmlands generating solar power for neighbouring energy-guzzling cities seems like a good business model to generate money for those whose only source of livelihood, previously, was farming.

As we pollute more lakes, generate more garbage, let out more effluents from our vehicles and factories, those at the bottom of the social pyramid suffer the most. Using the internet of things to control and monitor macro-level city problems such as garbage and pollution is a necessity. Smart trashcans that alert the local garbage truck driver when full; sensors that track excessive pollutants in waste water from housing communities and relay warning messages to local authorities; and inbuilt sensors in vehicles to track elevated levels of pollutants from the tail pipe emissions; could help us take corrective action to make all lives, privileged and not so privileged, more liveable.

A big problem citizens in many countries abroad face is the lack of transparency in financial systems that disperse loans and the dreaded red tape. Governments often announce benefit schemes for those who need it the most but the money and benefits rarely reach them. Using cutting edge technology such as blockchains and using quantum processing to handle the huge volume of transactions on the blockchain, governments can help take their benefits directly to the people and keep the process transparent, thus avoiding the greedy middlemen who are omnipresent at every level of disbursement.

Technology will evolve over the course of time but how we channel it to maximise the benefit to those in need, for whom it is a matter of plain survival or solving someone’s life-threatening crisis: is what will ensure inclusive growth in our communities.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON WEFORUM.ORG

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MEET TANMAY BAKSHI Not every 14-year old wakes up in the morning looking forward to the convergence of deep learning models. But then, not every 14-year old is Tanmay Bakshi. Such a delight to feature this young genius in our bumper edition.

EDITOR’S PICKS 01. Services like Watson make AI easy to use for developers – they just need to incorporate different types of tools!

02. However, deep learning is relatively new – not the concepts (those have been around for decades!), but the popularity and widespread use is new.

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anmay, you are the world’s youngest Watson programmer.

Can you walk us through the journey of how this happened?

What were the triggers that led to your interest in coding?

I originally started coding with the help of my dad, when I was five years old. After that, I started to use books and the internet as learning resources, to help me continue my journey in the field of computing. When I was 8 years old, I learnt iOS Programming, and at 9, had my first iOS App on the store.

After this, I developed numerous iOS Apps; but when I was 11 years old, I stumbled upon IBM Watson: and from there, I had a new mission: to use AI and Cognitive for the benefit of all humanity.

What are some of the apps that you’ve developed? Which one has been your favourite and why?

I’ve developed numerous applications, most of which use the power of artificial intelligence. My very first AI application was AskTanmay, an NLQA (Natural Language Question Answering) system, that can answer your person, organisation and location questions. I also recently developed FaceMLVault, which aims to use IBM Watson and deep learning algorithms to perform facial recognition. However, the one that I’m most excited about is called “The Cognitive Story” – it’s because this project is in the field of healthcare, the field that I think is going to be impacted the most through the power of AI. Through this project, we’re

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Whether you realise it or not, your life is already being shaped by artificial intelligence and technology in general.

trying to bring artificial communication ability to those who can’t communicate naturally, by understanding their EEG (Electroencephalogram) brainwaves. I’m working on the deep learning aspect of this project, which powers the real understanding of EEGs. Tell us about your work with Watson.

I’m passionate about services like the ones provided by IBM Watson, due to the fact that they solve one of the main problems with AI: accessibility. Developers can incorporate AI in their applications, but it’s so difficult, that they mostly avoid it. However, services like Watson make AI easy to use for developers – they just need to incorporate different types of tools! They just need to incorporate different types of tools in their applications.

With Watson, I’ve been able to build lots of different applications, in fact, The Cognitive Story app I mentioned previously is also

powered by IBM Watson – so are AskTanmay and FaceMLVault. I’ve worked with every Watson service available publicly, and have created AI-based solutions in practically every major field that AI impacts.

There’s a lot of talk about technology and its impact on our lives. How do you see technology shaping our personal and professional lives over the next five years? Do you think there will be a significant impact?

Whether you realise it or not, your life is already being shaped by artificial intelligence and technology in general.

Whether you’re typing on your phone’s keyboard, taking a depth-effect picture, using Tesla Autopilot, or even have a Gmail inbox, you’re using and benefiting from the power of AI. However, deep learning is relatively new – not the concepts (those have been around for decades!), but the popularity

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for all technologies that have ever existed!

Yet, we’re not stopping tech progress, we’re combatting against evil, AND we’re accelerating tech progress. Why would we stop for AI?

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The more tech-centric and data-driven your industry is, the more AI will augment it.

and widespread use is new; it’s only around five years old. However, imagine, in just five years, we’ve slated greater than exponential growth, so I can only imagine that, once we’ve removed the public fear of AI, and put AI into the hands of more developers, we’re going to see AI take an even bigger part of our lives; it’ll allow us to do things we could never have dreamt of before.

Particularly with AI, there’s been an ongoing debate about its use and its coexistence with human intelligence.

What’s your take on this?

My take is artificial intelligence has a lot of fear around it. This fear is caused by the fact that people aren’t in control of, or in the backend of AI. They aren’t able to see the way it actually works, they have this stereotype of AI from movies & TV shows.

However, when you take a deep dive into the backend of such technology, then you start to realise that no, AI won’t just randomly turn against us, and outsmart humans!

It can’t – it’s not capable of doing so. It’s objective function, or the function that tells AI what to do – its intent – is constant. While humans, themselves, may set this intent to something negative, we’ve been doing this

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As cognitive services emerge to the forefront, what industries do you think will be affected the most?

I think all industries will be affected – reason being that ALL industries are being forced to be tech-centric ones. And wherever tech lies, AI will impact that spot. However, the more tech-centric and data-driven your industry is, the more AI will augment it. For example, Healthcare, Security, and Finance are great examples of industries that are ripe for AI to augment.

What can businesses do to prepare themselves for this change?

Mostly, I’d say you need to be willing to accept the change and adopt it in your business as efficiently as you can. Plus, you shouldn’t have the wrong expectations: for example, there’s one expectation that a lot of businesspeople have from AI that simply isn’t true; it’ll replace their employees, and bring cost savings! It won’t replace them, it’ll augment them, make them more efficient, and allow you to save cost that way!

Terms like AI and Blockchain have almost become buzzwords today. How does one take away the hype from what really matters?

While these technologies have a lot of hype around them, I believe it’s well deserved. However, the way AI and Blockchain are sometimes portrayed in this hype is completely false – it sets false expectations, and when those expectations aren’t matched, people think that these technologies are useless and that we’ve just been hyping them up for no real reason.

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How can communities use such technologies to make a social impact? Is there a mission close to your heart that you are passionate about as well?

As I mentioned, I’m really excited about how AI can be implemented in fields like healthcare, where it can save, augment, and generally improve people’s lives. People, generally, can make social impacts via this technology in really simple ways – in fact, open source technology is one the key factors in deciding how much we’re able to advance state-of-the-art AI algorithms.

So, just doing something as simple as making sure your code is open source, and so are your algorithms and techniques, can make a huge difference. Imagine, if Deep Learning remained proprietary to everyone who developed it, we wouldn’t have ANY of the advances that we do today. Also, due to this, I have a goal to reach out to and help at least 100,000 aspiring beginners, to help them learn and innovate along their journey of programming. I’m already around 5,000 people there.

You travel a lot to keynote prominent conferences. What appeals to you the most about these large-scale events?

Mostly, I love the fact that I’m able to take such powerful technologies, and spread the word and my message about them, to so many people. AI is powerful – but we need people to open their eyes to the power that Deep Learning provides, and to how their lives are already surrounded by it!

You’ve obviously come so far at a very young age. What’s next for you? Where do you see yourself in the next couple of years?

Well, mainly, I want to continue researching in the field of AI: architecting better Neural Networks, and then applying those great architectures in the fields that need them the most, such as, Healthcare. I also wish to keep sharing my knowledge of these

technologies, and not just stop at 100,000 in my goal but expand from there.

Finally, what do you find exciting about Dubai as you gear up to make your first visit?

I heard Dubai is interesting! I can’t wait to see the Burj Khalifa, I’ve heard a lot of great things about the world’s tallest tower!

#ASKTANMAY – A FUN SEGMENT WITH SME ADVISOR 1. YOUR ROLE MODEL: Steve Jobs.

2. THE MOST INSPIRING BUSINESS PERSONALITY YOU’VE MET: John Cohn & Rob High.

3. IF A BOOK WERE TO BE WRITTEN ABOUT YOU, WHAT SHOULD THE TITLE BE: Tanmay Bakshi: When passion leads to inspiration.

4. THE FIRST THING YOU DO IN THE MORNING: check if my deep learning models have converged.

5. THE LAST THING YOU DO BEFORE GOING TO BED: read neural network architectural design choices papers.

6. YOUR FAVOURITE BUSINESS BOOK: Yet to be decided!

7. THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN: Persevere – Never give up.

8. YOUR FAVOURITE MOVIE: Tie between Home Alone 3 & Sponge Out of Water 9. YOUR FAVOURITE CITY: Delhi, India 10. IN ONE SENTENCE, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO FELLOW 14-YEAR OLDS: I’d say that you need to follow your heart, and follow your passion; if you’re passionate about coding, pursue it, but make sure that you persevere, no matter what you do.

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REDEFINING THE START-UP LIFE CYCLE Zevae Zaheer of Area 2071 answers a few critical questions. How soon should an idea transform into a business? Will future startups rethink the way that they structure their growth stages?

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. This rush to become self-identified, or externally labelled as a start-up, way too prematurely, is one of the unspoken reasons for such high failure rates with start-ups.

02. The job of SearchUp is not focused on “finding a repeatable and scalable business model” (Steven Blank) but on finding an important and urgent need or problem worth addressing.

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s most start-ups fail, there must be something wrong with how we define or think about a start-up. As soon as someone has an idea, it quickly becomes a ‘start-up’. This rush to become self-identified, or externally labelled as a start-up, way too prematurely, is one of the unspoken reasons for such high failure rates with start-ups. Dig deeper, and you will find that most first-time founders struggle to do two fundamentally different jobs, that of search and build, at the same time. As ideas become start-ups overnight, prematurely staffed with founders, the emphasis immediately shifts to building the ‘Minimum Viable Product’. It is hard to fight against this human bias of building first, which is driven in part by our inner desire to show progress to others.

Having learned from the failures and success of other interventions, we have learned that often, start-ups are failing because they jumped to the build stage before true, authentic search. This may seem like an academic point, or being pedantic about semantics. However, we feel it’s important to

recognise the life stage before a start-up. It’s not yet another process within the start-up stage, but a separate life-stage that is trying to achieve different things. For the want of a better term, we are calling it ‘SearchUp’.

The job of SearchUp is not focused on “finding a repeatable and scalable business model” (Steven Blank) but on finding an important and urgent need or problem worth addressing. Whilst searching does happen in start-ups today, it happens without rigour, structure and kudos.

Now, let’s focus on five key differences between SearchUps vs start-ups: ϭϭ SearchUp is a distinct life-stage ϭϭ SearchUp’s job is to test 70 per cent desirability, 20 per cent feasibility and 10 per cent viability ϭϭ Role: Experimenters, not Founders ϭϭ People over ideas ϭϭ Searching not only for the first customers, but also the first co-founders 1. First, SearchUp is a distinct life-stage.

A SearchUp exists to search for new value, by running experiments, with the goal of establishing a PROBLEMMARKET fit. In short, the most important part of a SearchUp is not to deploy code or software, but to search, and run experiments on each of the different building blocks of any canvas, to find a problem that is big enough and worth solving.

A start-up is in pursuit of building new value to achieve PRODUCT-MARKET fit.

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A SearchUp exists to search for new value, by running experiments, with the goal of establishing a problem-market fit.

The goals are to find first customers, first funding, first product, first team and first business model. We say first because most start-ups will go through several strategic changes (pivots).

A ScaleUp is the pursuit of systemising new value to achieve a COMPANY-MARKET fit. This involves codifying the problem, purpose, progress and people to deliver on a promise to a large group of customers.

This is the subject of a separate post or two, or see Reid Hoffman’s thoughtleadership on ScaleUps. Here’s a summary of these life-stages: Of course, there is no cookie-cutter guidance on how long each stage lasts.

The key is to give legitimacy to the experimenting stage.

2. SearchUp’s job is to test 70 per cent desirability, 20 per cent feasibility, and 10 per cent viability. According to CBInsights, the biggest cause of startup failure is a lack of market need or desirability. Customer problem, need or opportunity - can and should be experimented on (searched) long before

a product or service is developed. It’s very rare to find founders who can build and search at the same time. A SearchUp prioritises learning without building.

This learning, through experimentation, needs to be done with rigour and empathy.

The experimenter’s mind-set should be to stay as a SearchUp for as long as possible. It’s not a case of having run ONE experiment in one of the building blocks, seen some mirage of success and then automatically moving into the start-up stage. It’s about staying in this SearchUp life-stage for as long as necessary until you have tested all the different fundamental building blocks of customer, value, problem, etc. – to minimise risk and maximise evidence that the world needs yet another start-up.

As a SearchUp you’re different to a typical R&D, which is focused more on feasibility questions. The obvious struggle, particularly for those who self-label themselves as ‘disruptive’, is that “our existing potential customers don’t or won’t understand what we’re building”. At the end of the day, even disruptive SearchUps need an early-adopter customer - someone who desires the problem to be solved and who is willing to take a risk with you.

The hard part is never building a product, it’s finding a customer for it. The other struggle for SearchUps is that “I may create a disruptive idea, but history has proven that the first to market, the true disruptors, those who often create the foundations for others, rarely go to scale with billiondollar valuations”. To change the status quo, to have more individuals working on truly disruptive ideas, we need to provide a structure for SearchUps to move fast from an experiment to a ScaleUp. 3. Experimenters, not Founders. Just as the title of Founder has become coveted by many, we need to create similar aspirations, respect and acknowledgment of the role of Experimenters. Take the SME ADVISOR

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As ideas become start-ups overnight, prematurely staffed with founders, the emphasis immediately shifts to building the ‘Minimum Viable Product’.

example of diabetes as a problem.

There are multitudes of people (roles) involved – researchers, patients, doctors, entrepreneurs, etc. Some of these people see their role limited to being patients. Yet, another group takes it upon themselves to be “hackers”, managing their own condition with workarounds that are not formalised. And, yet another, smaller group, experimenters, want to take their successes to a wider context.

The pipeline from the top universities to start-up is well established. The pipeline from those facing problems, those researching the problem, those diagnosing the problem – is a huge untapped potential. We need to provide interventions of support to these people to transition from one role to first being experimenters, then founders, then entrepreneurs. We all underestimate the time it takes to find the right problem for the right customer/user. Thus, SearchUp is a vehicle that helps you transition from a role that you played before (patient, doctor, researcher) to one of being an experimenter.

4. People over ideas: As entrepreneur-first has demonstrated, there is success to be found in backing people over start-ups, in part because start-up ideas will most likely change radically. If people can demonstrate their deep expertise, commitment, their understanding and empathy towards the problem they seek to solve - they’ll find a way. Yes, we know most judging panels and criteria say they award based on ‘people+idea+market’, but you really don’t know the people based on a three-minute pitch. You’re just backing your hypothesis on their idea and the market.

In 99 per cent (guesstimate) of the big corporate programs we’ve seen, the focus is all on the investment in start-ups and beyond. There is certainly a market for that, but it’s disproportionately skewed.

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There is a bigger and, yet, untapped potential to open your corporate in strategic ways to allow SearchUps to validate the problem-market fit.

SearchUps should be able to search for, and run experiments on, a corporate’s problems to identify that potential. Most SearchUps struggle to access the right people in the corporates. Make them available in a structured form, then there is true co-creation from the beginning, rather than retrofitting start-ups when they’re further down the line.

5. Searching not only for the first customers, but also the first cofounders. The third common cause of failure of start-ups is not having the right team. If you dig deeper into this you will find that most co-founders wear ‘rose-tinted glasses’ when they begin their start-up. The problems often come up when they have to pivot to a different customer, a different problem, or even a different vision. As a SearchUp, your job is to run experiments with other cofounders to see how well you work with each other and how each of you embrace the changes that come thick and fast. As a SearchUp you’re not having artificial conversations about equity stakes. You’re validating who is the best person(s) we need to a) run the experiments and b) who can help each other to take the successful experiments to the next stage?

In summary, by inviting experimenters to search for new business models, new systems and new relationships, we at Area 2071 exist to create a self-sustaining ecosystem, which has a healthy mix of SearchUps, start-ups and ScaleUps. Our focus is not on exits and valuations, but ensuring that the brightest hearts, minds and hands reap the rewards for their risks of trying to experiment on, with and for systems-level change.

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GENDER PARITY: ARE WE THERE YET?

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In conversation with Ruqayya Alblooshi, Head of Government Identity and Events Section, General Secretariat of the Cabinet.

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Where do you project the future of women in the next five years and further?

I believe the future of women in the workplace is very promising as they are thriving in their roles and delivering major projects across the nation. With government support, we are witnessing women who are conquering new fields such as space, science, judicial and medical.

RUQAYYA ALBLOOSHI HEAD OF GOVERNMENT IDENTITY AND EVENTS SECTION, GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF THE CABINET.

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Fairness in treating a female equally to her male coworkers in pay and promotion does make a difference in retaining top female talent.

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How important is it for companies to ensure they are hiring women in leadership positions?

It is crucial to have women in leadership positions; they bring certain diversity into the workplace. Women are defined by their strong working style which includes listening skills, collaborative approaches to problem-solving as well as the ability to multi-task and to synthesize several viewpoints effectively and quickly. Let us not forget women are very much responsible and committed by nature, they contribute tremendously to the improvement of the workplace they belong to.

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What are the policies and practices that really work in promoting and retaining top female talent?

In my opinion as a woman in a workplace, fairness in treating a female equally to her male co-workers in pay and promotion does make a difference in retaining top female talent. Another important factor is appreciating and acknowledging her efforts and contribution to the workplace by her management.

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The government of the UAE is fully supporting gender parity by excelling in strategic initiatives that contribute to achieving this goal.

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Gender equality is crucial to any growing country’s competitiveness. Women represent half of the population which means that their productivity is critical to the economy. The government of the UAE is fully supporting gender parity by excelling in strategic initiatives that contribute to achieving this goal. There has been a significant increase in awareness of the importance of gender parity. Let’s look at the numbers: 66 per cent of the government workforce are women and 30 per cent of them are in leadership positions. I’d like to share a quote by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and the Ruler of Dubai: “Behind every great community stand great women, leading each generation and raising our families and nation higher”.

As a mother, I would say balancing between work and personal life. Especially when we have children, it gets very challenging.

My advice is to utilise the help of the community we live in and our family. We have very effective nurseries that assist in educating and improving the child’s social skills at an early age.

What future trends are you seeing in terms of gender parity and how is the UAE at the forefront of this?

What are some of the top challenges that women in the workplace currently face?

How can they overcome these?

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Work hard with strong commitment to succeed as it takes a lot to show your calibre.

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Work hard with strong commitment to succeed as it takes a lot to show your calibre.

We must work with the intention to leave our workplaces in a better position than when we first joined it. Women must support each other, especially at the leadership level.

My father is my inspiration, growing up seeing him dedicated to his work made me the person I am today. He made me want to be part of the workforce and be part of the development of my country. Now I am trying to pass this sense of pride and commitment to my children, who are a 6-year old girl and a 3-year old boy.

As a woman in a leadership position yourself, what advice would you like to give to other women looking up to you?

Finally, on a personal level, who inspires you?

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VAT IN THE UAE:

impact on cashflow and what you need to do We reached out to VAT expert Bill Anderson, Partner, Argent Gulf Consulting, to share his opinion in this new VAT-dedicated column.

Through this monthly expert section, you will find everything you need to prepare for the impending VAT deadline.

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ne of the key aspects for any business to control is its cashflow. If you don’t manage your cashflow properly, then no matter what your profits are, your business is doomed. If you don’t have facilities with the bank or enough cash reserves to get you through the tough times then you’re in trouble. The true danger lies in that for most entities cashflow has almost no profit and loss implications. Like heart disease, it’s a silent killer.

Output VAT is the tax on the invoices to your customers. Input VAT is the tax on the invoices from your suppliers. From a cash perspective, you want to pay your suppliers as late as possible and get paid by your customers as soon as possible. However, this will impact the timing of your VAT receipts and payments too.

GCC Governments will, regionally, begin hovering up some of this with the

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introduction of VAT on January 1, 2018. The UAE and Saudi go live on that date. This has been widely communicated. Oman should follow midyear with the rest, most likely, launching on January 1, 2019.

How will you optimise your cashflow position?

All of this should be done in a legal manner that recognises the VAT rules for time of supply.

Your business will hopefully have: • identified each of its transaction types and how it interacts with VAT. • documented and assigned roles to ensure that the VAT compliant processes are rigorously followed.

• taken advantage of this review to remove unnecessary customer and supplier engagements.

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VAT AND PLANNING

Continuous service Your business might have multiple legal entities. These might invoice one another to ensure each presents a fair and representative level of profitability. Where the service provided is for continuous services, say HR support, the period and its starting of invoicing, can be managed to mitigate any cash effect.

Grouping Group entities, where common control exists, removes the requirement for any application of VAT. There are entities that do not post supplier invoices until they go through its internal approval process. There is no legal requirement that this process is completed before an invoice is entered on a business’s accounting software and VAT reclaimed in the normal manner. Interestingly, some accounting software can now become your cashflow enemy, causing VAT to be reclaimed later than it might otherwise be.

Timing your delivery At the end of a VAT reporting period, always the end of a month, it may be beneficial to delay ultimate delivery of goods and services until the first week of the following month. The time of supply would then fall into the new VAT reporting period and its invoices therein raised.

This will affect profit and loss, but as already stated, cash is currently king. Given the lack of statutory reporting in the region, forgoing revenues to gain a cash advantage is the wiser choice.

Review your processes It’s worth analysing and quantifying what amount of VAT was not reclaimed in a period it should have been expensed.

Processes should be amended to ensure that this leakage is not repeated. On the contrary, customer invoicing should be assessed calculating the additional cost of early payment of output VAT. Once again protocols should be revisited.

The issues highlighted will likely uncover an odd issue that many have not so considered until entering a VAT world.

These are the late arriving supplier invoices.

Invoicing dangers Before now businesses have smugly enjoyed batting away requests for payments on invoices that have not even been submitted. Just because of the legal requirement to submit them, there will be those entities that continue to fall foul of the law.

Not only are they now open to a fine of AED 5,000 per incident, they are affecting the cashflow planning of their customers.

Are we now considering a future where customers chase suppliers for their VAT invoice?

Pro-forma-valid or not?

Remember a pro-forma invoice is not an invoice. The submission must be a valid tax invoice, replete with all the information that the Federal Tax Authority [FTA] require. Are you as a business about to become a tax educator for your suppliers?

Maybe.

Are there other cash VAT related non-trading activities to plan for?

Disposals. Anything from assets to business units, in the latter case where it is being disposed of to a buyer who intends to continue that unit’s activity.

Import/Export Where goods are imported to the UAE for GCC re-export, the procedure is as complex as I’ve seen. The potential for processing errors and subsequent fines should be particularly concerning and demand oversight and management.

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VAT demands that you know your business, its processes and be flexible enough to manage any changes in a way you have not needed to do before.

What if you end up with a VAT reclaim?

This is not necessarily a good thing. Firstly, it suggests you are invoicing insufficient values to cover your costs. You might be a net exporter of goods and services, in which case this isn’t an issue. Secondly it will likely lead to a VAT inspection. “Why”, the FTA will ask, “is your business posting a VAT reclaim?”

Be prepared.

Should it be an anomaly, the FTA is likely to refuse to refund your first period where a reclaim arises. Rightly they would say that you should be expecting to trade profitably.

This means raising more invoices to customers than are received from suppliers. Therefore, subsequent returns would involve a payment to the FTA and any reclaim would quickly be cancelled out.

At this point you are leaking cash as the FTA will wait until you either trade back to

a point where you are making payments to them or accept that your business will be in a permanent reclaim situation due to the export nature of your business. Or, trade is poor and your entity is sinking.

Death by papercuts VAT is not a hammer that assaults the business you thought you understood. Once you learn to manage the rules, it is a positive for your organisation. Your business will be more efficient, better systemised and more informed in its decision-making.

VAT demands that you know your business, its processes and be flexible enough to manage any changes in a way you have not needed to do before. Becoming lord of your VAT world gives you a competitive advantage, none more so than in a competitive environment where cash is king.

*DISCLAIMER: THE INSIGHTS, OPINIONS AND ADVICE SHARED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN. PLEASE SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PROFESSIONAL LEGAL ADVISER FOR PROPER GUIDANCE.

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COUNTING DOWN TO THE VAT DEADLINE YOUR 30-SECOND GUIDE TO SUCCESS

01 WHAT IS VAT? A tax levied on all goods and services that are bought or sold for consumption.

04 WHAT IS THE TAX PERCENTAGE? The rate of the VAT is 5%.

07 WHEN DOES IT START? January 1, 2018 Disclaimer: Please connect your lawer for proper guidance SME ADVISOR

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02

03

WHO DOES IT APPLY TO?

WHERE CAN I REGISTER?

For mandatory registration: any business that has taxable supplies and imports over AED 375,000.

Registration must be done through FTA’s online portal.

Once done, a Tax Registration Number will be issued upon FTA’s approval.

For voluntary registration: any business that has taxable supplies and imports over AED 187,500.

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ARE THERE ANY SECTORS EXEMPTED FROM VAT?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN TERMS OF KEEPING FINANCIAL RECORDS?

Yes, residential properties, bare land, local passenger transport and some financial services are exempt from the VAT. Speak to your local consultant for more details.

Businesses will be required to keep accurate and timely records of their financials. Moreover, any taxable person must retain VAT invoices issued and received for a minimum of 5 years.

08 WHAT ARE SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS REQUIRED FOR REGISTRATION? Valid trade licence, Articles of association, Certificate of incorporation, Emirates Id, Bank account details, Passport copy, Description of business activities, Current and projected turnover, Customs Authority registration details and Expected amount of imports, exports and GCC supplies.

09 HOW WILL THIS IMPACT MY BUSINESS? Some of the changes would include updating back-end systems, file reports for tax returns, train staff members, revised pricing, educate suppliers and rethink billing processes. Businesses will need to consult with their tax advisor to assess the full-scale impact on their business and prepare accordingly.

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A NEW HACK FOR MARKETING With artificial intelligence disrupting almost every business function there is, marketing is one area that is being particularly impacted. Moustafa Mahmoud, Founder & CEO of Cognitev, saw the opportunity and took his chance. Today, the ardent entrepreneur is setting new standards of quality in the marketing world.

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. Cognitev is an artificial intelligence (AI) technology company focusing on providing marketing automation solutions.

02. Mahmoud is preparing to scale-up by ensuring that there is no room for error or slack.

03. With growth and funding on his side, Mahmoud is currently tackling challenges related to scaling-up and expansion.

Established: November 1, 2014 Employees: 40

Year on year growth: 240% Unique selling point: Traffic-as-a-Service

Challenge takeaway: The journey is the reward.

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oustafa Mahmoud is slowly building his reputation as a local marketing genius with his new technology solutions. He entered the entrepreneurial scene in 2015 with his company MENA Commerce that focused on e-commerce rather than marketing. However, he soon realised that his technology was better equipped to provide unique value to marketers across the world.

Rather than dwelling on what didn’t work, he switched gears and focused on what did work.

He turned things around with the launch of Cognitev, which isan artificial intelligence (AI) technology company focusing on providing marketing automation solutions.

Cognitev’s product line includes a progressive platform called InstaScaler that helps startups and SMEs completely automate their advertising, as well as AdRelated, the world’s first semantic marketing platform focused purely on performance, allowing advertisers to match their ads with engaging content relevant to their business. While AdRelated covers the entire GCC, InstaScaler is a global product supporting Cognitev’s clients across the world.

Speaking about the science behind his success, Mahmoud says: “We had a major pivot in our business around a year ago.

We tried to solve the issues we were facing ourselves while trying to market our work, and we stumbled onto a much bigger opportunity with a much larger market size.

We believe that online marketing is the key to success for any online business. However, it’s one of the most difficult areas to master.

Using AI, we have created solutions that can automate the process of acquiring customers online for any website, all we need is their URL and the countries they want customers from. We’ve almost tripled our size over the past 12 months, we became profitable and cashflow positive as well. I think a key driver

for our growth is that we found our productmarket fit. We managed to build a product that solves a real pain for a large market. We are currently serving customers across the world, all the way from the US to China.”

Focus on growth Not only has Cognitev managed to surpass the critical ‘three-year’ SME milestone, it has also expanded across several regions outside MENA. In May 2017, it underwent a comprehensive rebranding effort as its vision expanded from being a technology company that caters to the MENA market to a technology company with a global vision.

With a team of 40 people experienced in engineering and data science and with offices in Dubai and Cairo, Cognitev is currently raising a US$2 million round of growth capital. Mahmoud has a clear plan for what he wants to achieve with this funding. “One of our objectives is to make ads beautiful again. With the introduction of artificial intelligence to run performancebased advertising campaigns, companies can have exceptional performance with minimal effort. We have recently built a unique automated advertising solution and now introducing it to customers from across the globe. We raised a little bit less than US$ 2 million as of last year. We are currently raising another US$2 million round that will be used purely for growth.

It is mainly for customer acquisition, team hiring and infrastructure costs. I believe that we were very lucky in the type of investors we attracted, they all bought into our vision, even though we had very little progress to show at that time. I think they betted primarily on the team, followed by the technology that we build, and finally the market size and potential of the problem we are solving,” he explains.

The emergence of solutions such as the one Mahmoud’s team is offering is rampant

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My advice to entrepreneurs is to build a product and get significant traction before they think of raising any external finance.

within the region. So, what sets him apart from others? “Automation is the core value proposition that we offer our customers.

With automation come to a lot of benefits, everything is simpler and available at the push of a button. It becomes an on-demand type of service that is accessible to everyone no matter what his/her background or skill level is. All you need to do is push a button,” he responds.

Solving challenges head on With growth and funding on his side, what are the challenges that worry Mahmoud?

“Leading a team that spans different countries is definitely a challenge. It affects hiring, decision making; my ability to interact with all team members is limited

due to this. There is a speed element that comes into play when the entire team isn’t in the same physical location, especially when it comes to decision-making. Over the past two years we struggled a lot with this, but we recently found our magic formula for tackling this issue. And, it is much better than when we started.”

Explaining his magic formula, Mahmoud adds: “We made sure to delegate authority across geographies so that there are people on the ground in each country that can take decisions without waiting for someone in a different time-zone. However, this is not possible for 100 per cent of the time, but for a large part it is. We also try to keep daily communication channels open and real-time collaboration (using tools such

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The rise of e-commerce in the MENA region was an important element in driving digital marketing budgets higher.

as Slack) to ensure free flow of information across countries. Our hiring process can be improved as we are currently trying to scale; we need a completely revamped process that allows us to hire at a much higher throughput and with a larger audience. We also need to build internal policies for our team to support this scale, without proper policies and internal processes. Scaling our hiring will crush us instead of helping us, it would cause an implosion and chaos.”

Even as he is generally focusing on surpassing the challenges that come with expansion, Mahmoud is preparing for his scale-up mode by ensuring that there is no room for error or slack. He believes that the larger the organisation, the larger the waste. Every company in the world has this “waste” problem. It can be communication related, execution related, or any number of things. For now, his team is focusing on eliminating all waste across ranks as they kick into over-drive on their quest for global domination. “While this is challenging and somehow a painful process, it’s the cost we need to pay as we move from a “start-up” to a “scale up”.

Growing up is definitely not that easy!” he surmises.

Redefining how marketing is done Mahmoud wants Cognitev to be the first business that comes to mind when anyone thinks of marketing their business online.

It is quite an ambitious dream for an SME owner with humble beginnings. How does Mahmoud plan to achieve his goal? “Serve more customers, deliver more value, and help them serve their customers as well.

Our vision goes beyond advertising, I

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believe we connect businesses to people, it is this “match-making” that allows people to find things that are valuable to them, and businesses to find the people who need them. It’s as simple as that,” he opens up.

The next step for Cognitev is expansion into the US. The company is currently acquiring almost all its new customers beyond the MENA market. While it continues to have a strong standing in the MENA region, its biggest market is the US. “Due to the nature of our product, we can acquire customers anywhere in the world. We want to be the first thing anyone thinks of when it comes to marketing their business online, regardless of where they are in the world.”

When it comes to marketing as a business vertical within the region, Mahmoud believes it holds enormous potential for change. “Digital marketing will be completely democratised using AI, and it will no longer be a barrier for people who try to do business online. It will be more affordable and deliver higher ROI as machines optimise for the maximum value.

As a result, more and more businesses will be able to and will find it easier to connect with customers transistion to digital, worldwide.”

But his optimism comes with a word of caution, “Beware of fragmentation, there are tons of players in this industry each offering a different product/service with seemingly the same value proposition.

While they are definitely not the same, customers aren’t savvy enough to tell the difference. Make sure you nail your value proposition in a way that immediately separates you from everyone else and gets your customer’s attention,” he advises.

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SERVICING THE NEEDS OF A NEWAGE CONSUMER What Uber is to transport, ServiceMarket.com is to home services.

Founded in Dubai in 2013, the home-grown company has grown exponentially to cover 10 cities in the Middle East. Bana Shomali, Founder, ServiceMarket, shares some of her hard-won lessons on leading a company and innovating in the crowded sharing economy space‌ SME ADVISOR

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. ServiceMarket.com is the region’s largest online marketplace for home services. ServiceMarket helps people find, get quotes and book any service they need with the click of a button from professional, vetted companies.

02. The online sector in the UAE and wider region is a huge opportunity for any entrepreneur, and Bana believes she is only scratching the surface.

Established: May 2013

Employees: 40 employees

Unique selling point: ServiceMarket helps you find and book any service you need at home with the click of a button!

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unning a business gives you invaluable lessons about the market you operate in and a deep understanding of the customer.

When Bana Shomali ventured into the entrepreneurial world, she originally founded a concept called MoveSouq.com.

Reflecting on the transition, she remarks: “We had originally been called ‘MoveSouq. com’ and we rebranded to ServiceMarket. com to more accurately reflect our ambition and scope of services. We launched several new services, most notably, a platform where people can compare and buy their car and home insurance online. Today, ServiceMarket.com is the region’s largest online marketplace for home services.

ServiceMarket helps people find, get quotes and book any service they need with the click of a button from professional, vetted companies. Whether you’re looking for a mover or a maintenance company, a cleaner or a caterer, ServiceMarket has paired up with over 300 licensed companies to deliver these services.”

What is helping growth?

ServiceMarket is one of the UAE’s fastest growing start-ups, with double digit growth month-on-month in online transactions.

Much of this advancement can be accredited to the uniqueness of the platform. It provides something that there is a huge demand for and currently isn’t being offered elsewhere. It solves a unique problem for customers in the region, which is that home services have been traditionally very difficult to procure due to the high fragmentation of the industry. At the same time, companies operating in the industry found it difficult to reach customers in a cost-effective way. The platform presents the perfect solution for both customer and company, by connecting them both and allowing them to transact online.

“Another aspect is that a lot of our customers come back and use us for several services – if you’ve used our site to find a catering company for a party, you’ll likely use us again to book a cleaner to help clean up afterwards,” Shomali remarks.

What’s also beneficial to her start-up is that the overall e-commerce market in the region is growing rapidly each year. It is forecast that e-commerce in the UAE will be worth US$10 billion by 2018. The online services market is only nascent. This bodes a very positive outlook for ServiceMarket.

Perhaps, it was these defining factors driving growth that convinced investors to put their money behind the company.

ServiceMarket raised US$ 4 million into the business so far since its launch.

The last round (Series A) was in 2016, which comprised of a US$ 3 million capital investment from a global VC firm called Addventure.

“We have exceeded our investors’ expectations in terms of growth year on year, despite originally having very little in terms of funding. We did this by focusing on monetisation and profitability from Day One. We’re very proud of the team we have built at ServiceMarket. It’s 40 people strong and comprises of passionate, entrepreneurial and hardworking individuals. It’s led by a C-level team that has over 40 years of combined work experience,” beams Shomali.

Powering through challenges “The biggest challenge you face when running a small business is having very limited resources, while trying to solve a big problem. In our case, we are trying to digitise a traditionally offline industry (a huge challenge) and we are cracking at this problem with a small team and limited funding,” Shomali quips. “The reality of having limited resources means that you

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The reality of having limited resources is that you must continuously prioritise initiatives, choosing the ones that drive the fastest growth, and parking the rest of the ideas for later.

must continuously prioritise initiatives, choosing the ones that drive the fastest growth, and parking the rest of the ideas for a later date. It is sometimes very difficult to force these choices, but we have to. If we could launch everything we wanted, and funding wasn’t an issue, we’d probably grow much faster.”

Even as Shomali is facing the harsh reality of being an entrepreneur, she has found a hack to boost productivity with a small team. “We have yearly, monthly and weekly planning sessions to make sure we are continuously assessing what we need to get done, by when and in which order of priority. As our team grew from three people, to 15 people and now to 40 people, we’ve had to formalise our working

relationships with more transparent processes and tools. In the early days, our “processes” entailed just asking the person next to you to get something done! Now, with a bigger team, we’ve instilled some formal processes and tools for planning, execution and tracking. Despite these new more formal tools, we still leave room for acting on our feet, and staying agile.”

Why being a small company is advantageous?

Shomali likes to think that as a small company, they are quite efficient in getting things done. “We’re lucky that we are not held back by things like company politics and bureaucracy. We have a high bar with our team on speed of

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ServiceMarket solves a unique problem for customers in the region, which is that home services have been traditionally very difficult to procure due to the high fragmentation of the industry.

BANA SHOMALI FOUNDER SERVICEMARKET

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execution. It’s important we remain agile in an increasingly competitive market,” she explains.

It is this captivating combination of agility and functionality that helps Shomali’s platform stand out from competition. “While there have been some smaller players who have entered the market, we remain the largest player, with the most advanced technology and most premium network of home service providers.

We make sure we remain the first choice for our customers by investing significantly in our customer experience and technology.

We’ve adopted world-class tools to track the experience of every customer using our service, and addressing customer complaints in real-time.”

Technology, new markets and ambitions for the future At its very core, ServiceMarket is a company that runs on state-of-the-art technology.

This is the ethos that Shomali wants to continue focusing on as she plans to take her business to the next level. “As a tech company, the primary capex investments we make is in our technology – both our front-end website and app, but also the machine that operates in the back-end.

Our biggest investment in technology moving forward will be toward going deeper

in the value chain, and integrating more deeply with our service providers. So that means developing products that help them schedule jobs in an easier way, get paid faster, and track the service real time.”

In the meantime, she is also eyeing expansion using a three-pronged approach.

First, she will expand geographically. Having already grown to 10 cities in the last six months, she will continue to add more cities to her portfolio. Second, she is looking to add more services so that she can offer a more valuable platform to customers. She adds: “I prioritise my time daily toward the initiatives that are very important for mid-to longer term growth, such as designing new products and launching in new cities.”

Looking to the future, Shomali hopes that the lucrative market will continue to favour her business. “The exponential growth of online consumption in the UAE and the region is a boon for our business. Just in the last year, we’ve seen online search volumes for some of our services quadruple. We believe that it’s only a matter of time before people are booking anything they need online, with a technology that’s integrated into their homes. I can imagine someone coming home at the end of a long day, speaking into an online personal assistant, like Siri or Alexa, asking them to book a cleaner for the next day,” she concludes.

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Setting benchmarks for a new paradigm in aviation Bashar Beasha, Naushad Ahmad and Claudio Lietaert are the entrepreneurial trio behind the success of the young enterprise Global Jet Centre. Even though their company is still relatively small, it’s already providing sound solutions to the big boys in its industry.

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n an industry as dynamic as aviation, Global Jet Centre has not only managed to find its ground, but is pushing the limits of what can be achieved.

Specialising in providing charters, the company organises flights to and from the Middle East, Europe, CIS, North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia; flying to over 40,000 airports across the globe. From flexible and readymade solutions for business, leisure and group charters to medical evacuations, the company has a vast portfolio of client-driven solutions. This is the result of the relentless efforts of its three partners to establish a

company that purely focuses on standards and high-quality customer service.

The home-grown business was founded about five years ago and has already managed to gain customer confidence and a reputation for reliability. Its mission is simple: Air travel on your own terms. A powerful statement that speaks volumes about what the company prides itself on.

“During the initial stages, the competition was a major concern for us because we knew we were entering a crowded space. So, it was up to us how we wanted to differentiate ourselves – and we chose customer service,” explains Bashar Beasha.

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. The home-grown business was founded about five years ago and has already managed to gain customer confidence and a reputation for reliability.

02. From flexible and readymade solutions for business, leisure and group charters to medical evacuations, the company has a vast portfolio of client-driven solutions.

Adding to this Claudio Lietaert says: “Absolutely. We’ve set the tone, right from the onset. We are here for our customers.

I think our clients respect the fact that between the three of us, we have over four decades of aviation experience. In fact, they look up to us, in a way, to guide them in the right direction. With all humility, we’ve experienced all the trials of operating within the aviation industry and have become champions at dealing with the processes.

A significant proportion of our clientele comprises of high-profile individuals, who expect a certain kind of service and flexibility, and we ensure that we offer that to them.”

Backing up this promise of ‘customer first’ is the company’s professional team that is available around the clock for help with any client requirements. This includes things such as a personalised catering

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menu, dedicated VIP lounge or transfers to and from the airport. This is, of course, only scratching the surface of what the company has on offer. But bespoke service aside, another key factor aiding the company’s fast-paced growth is the support it is receiving from Dubai South – the business park it is based out of. “The best part about Dubai South Business Park is its prolific location and proximity to the new Al Maktoum Airport. It really strengthens our offering,” explains Naushad Ahmad. “From a partnership point-of-view, they have been fantastic to work with. They understand the challenges of a growing SME and have provided constant support to us throughout our journey. They are cost-effective, they assist us with marketing, they streamline all the paperwork and most importantly, they are the ideal partners for us as we look to scale up.”

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“It’s so important to know your product inside out. Be the champion of your industry, it’s the only way to stand out.” – Claudio Lietaert.

“Going back to what we were saying about the customer, I think the prestige that comes attached with working alongside partners such as Dubai South adds immense value to us an SME. It instils confidence within our customers and has allowed us to enter exciting markets,” Lietaert jumps in.

A touch of technology Speaking of what’s currently on their agenda, the Managing Partners share that Global Jet Centre is in the midst of upgrading its technology systems. “We are investing in improving our CRM systems to ensure that we are always updated with customer information and have an eye on the business in real time,” explains Bashar Beasha. “We’ve tested some of this technology and it’s truly remarkable in terms of enabling us to speed up our response time.”

Expanding further, Naushad Ahmad says: “We are in the quest for perfection and we seek improvement in various aspects of our business. We are motivated by the need for continual improvement. We benchmark ourselves against our international competitors and if that requires investment in certain areas of technology, we will consider it.”

Lietaert also quickly points out that the company treads a fine balance between face-to-face and technology-based interactions. “At the end of the day, we are a business that requires a lot of human interaction and we are careful to not let technology completely take over.”

What’s next The company says that it has top-notch charters flying all around the world. The primary market, however, remains GCC.

Now, Global Jet Centre is renewing its plans for expansion into new markets, which includes setting up regional offices outside the UAE. “We’ve come a long way, but we consider ourselves as starters in the industry. We operate with a startup mind-set and have big ambitions for the company,” smiles Naushad Ahmad.

“We’ve firmly established ourselves here, so it’s time to be able to set a benchmark outside our current market.” The company is currently finalizing its strategy to make inroads into other markets.

“Expansion means hiring more members to our team and that’s something on the cards,” Beashar Beasha quips in. And when it comes to new talent, the trio believes there’s no better way than to lead by example. The chemistry they share is truly an inspiration to any new members who will join them in the future.

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Grocery shopping made simple BulkWhiz.com is the first bulk grocery e-commerce platform in the region, powered by home-grown artificial intelligence. The platform is currently in its Beta phase with plans to roll-out across the UAE over the next few months. Even so.

It’s already managing to revamp traditional grocery shopping with its innovative approaches.

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ulkWhiz is a concept born out of a personal challenge that its founder Amira Rashad faced with grocery shopping. As a working mum, she had to often juggle between professional commitments and personal chores. Amidst this, making regular runs for grocery shopping seemed tedious and quite time consuming. Especially with a large family, Rashad wondered if there was a better way to bulk buy everything her family needed.

With bulk, you save on money, time and effort, particularly if the items are delivered to your door.

While countries like USA and UK had major retailers to address this challenge, she found that no one in the Middle East could provide bulk buying. With largely premium locations anchoring expensive mall real estate, the last thing retailers wanted to do is occupy valuable shelf space with large size, discounted packages. “Grocery shopping is repetitive and highly inefficient,” expresses Rashad. “I don’t know many moms or dads that enjoy dragging the kids to the

supermarket, fighting for a parking spot, standing in long lines or carrying the same heavy items home, only to realise they have forgotten one or two key things every single week! There has to be a better way of doing this.”

Having advised major global retailers in the capacity as a strategy consultant with Booz Allen in NY and London, Rashad realised very quickly that a problem this big and frequent is best addressed through technology.

Together with her three co-founders, who brought in deep expertise in artificial intelligence, sourcing and logistics as well as FMCG marketing, she launched BulkWhiz – an e-commerce portal that made bulk buying of grocery possible and more efficient by using artificial intelligence technology.

Shop till you drop!

BulkWhiz simplifies grocery shopping by focusing its assortment and offers on high volume items that are essential to families.

Unlike other e-commerce retailers that take the freedom from shelf space limitations

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. BulkWhiz simplifies grocery shopping by focusing its assortment and offers on high volume items that are essential to families.

02. The current challenge that Amira Rashad is tackling is introducing and defining the bulk EDLP value concept to suppliers used to heavy discounting of smaller SKUs.

as an excuse to inundate consumers with a plethora of SKUs, most which they do not want or need, BulkWhiz realises that shoppers are short of time. It therefore uses technology to curate an assortment of products that are most relevant to them. “With two teenage sons, I am unlikely to want to see offers on diapers. The idea is to showcase products that are best suited to your needs. An example of this is Paleo protein balls, sold in bulk at a 25 per cent saving to stores every day,” explains Rashad.

The AI factor The differentiating factor of Rashad’s platform is the AI technology that she has integrated into it. She believes that the complicated nature of household consumption decisions and the large number of external factors that can impact those decisions can be simplified using these mechanisms.

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BulkWhiz addresses every challenge within the e-commerce experience to help establish a recurring customer relationship.

Speaking of how customers can derive value out of this technology, Rashad says: “Artificial intelligence is the ideal solution to everyone’s grocery shopping problem.

By factoring in everything from shopping behaviours to weather patterns, BulkWhiz’s proprietary, home-grown, AI technology helps shoppers optimise household consumption and save money, time and effort. We have heard many shoppers say that the process of having to assemble a list and checkout every time they go grocery shopping is painful.

That is why BulkWhiz helps you simplify grocery shopping by creating a one time, personalised shopping list of the grocery items you buy constantly. It gives you a simple and user friendly interface to manage your household buying needs with clever features like the ability to snooze or modify orders with one click. The list is powered by technology to help you never run out of key essentials like toilet paper or diapers.”

Exceptional experience The above functionality combined with personalised customer service is what sets BulkWhiz apart from its competitors. Unlike other e-commerce players who either ship

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40% of household spend is accounted for by grocery retail in the region (US$175 billion per annum) and touches every household multiple times a week.

98% of e-commerce transactions in the region involve electronics or fashion items. These items are transactionary in nature, and do not involve the same reliably recurring patterns that grocery purchases do.

through third party freight companies or deliver to your home, BulkWhiz assigns a dedicated ‘Customer Whiz’ to serve your home. This person will introduce themselves by name, deliver your grocery needs reliably every two weeks and will do everything they can to ensure your satisfaction.

Further explaining this innovative approach, Rashad explains: “When you are serving customers for the long run, you need to establish a relationship based on trust.

That’s exactly why BulkWhiz will happily accept returns if you are not satisfied. Our customer service philosophy is based on a simple concept: Happy customers buy more.”

BulkWhiz also enables customers to have a smooth check out process. Every customer can save their card details on the platform with the assurance that it provides the

highest level of security to protect payment credentials using a technology known as triple tokenisation.

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Building the ultimate grocery solution There’s no doubt that Rashad has managed to build something that has a solid value proposition. The response she has received from users, investors and partners speaks for itself. Over the three-month Beta stage, BulkWhiz has already managed to sign up 1000 households. The company has signed preferential agreements with 50 leading suppliers and has the support of big global brands. That’s not all. Funding is also coming in to fuel its growth. The company’s seed round was oversubscribed even before its launch and several other angel networks are currently in talks to fund the concept.

So, where does BulkWhiz stand currently and what does it have in store for the future?

Rashad quickly responds: “BulkWhiz is currently in its Beta phase through a website and mobile app and is due to be released across the UAE imminently. We have a team of 15 members based out of Dubai and Cairo.

In 2018, we are looking at regional expansion to key markets like KSA and Egypt, and taking our AI tech to the next level.”

Ready to go shopping anyone?

The differentiating factor of Rashad’s platform is the AI technology that she has integrated into it.

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A SOCIALLYDRIVEN FINANCIAL SOLUTION What Amro Al Qubaisi is doing with his startup Hayya is not just disruptive, but leaps and bounds ahead of the current market offering.

But, will it sustain its unique model?

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. Hayya is currently in the prototype phase and a beta app is anticipated to be released by Q2 2018 with the vision to build a collaborative ecosystem of social digital financial services.

02. Hayya has successfully developed long-term partnerships and continues to induct key partners within the technology, financial services and startup ecosystem.

03. Hayya has launched it’s digital channels and currently has over 2000 subscribers and followers without any marketing.

Established: Currently under establishment Employees: 6

Year on year growth: 240%

Unique selling point: Hayya allows users to pool money from their social network to achieve a goal or make something happen all powered by a commerce proposition, chat and collaboration tools.

Challenge takeaway: Talk to as many people as possible about your concept. Be passionate about your brand promise.

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hat Amro envisions for the world of payments is quite extraordinary. He wants to create a financial solution that caters to the unique needs of the socially active millennial and younger generations. How? By combining two things that are very critical to them: financial independence and purpose.

“Hayya is the first blockchain-based social digital bank that facilitates crowdfunding and group payments – all powered by commerce proposition, chatting and collaboration tools. The idea is to give the youth a platform, where they can make a collective saving, facilitate a loan fund, create a fund for socially-driven causes or simply arrange group related purchases.”

Amro has devised this platform, which is currently at the prototype stage, because he ultimately expects customers to demand for more relevant financial services. His confidence in his concept is also demonstrated by the fact that he has funded the business with his personal savings. “I fully sponsored Hayya’s initial costs,” he says. But as the concept gains traction, Amro has realised that he would need external financial support to move forward. “We received commitments of US$ 220,000 from angel investors. However, due to strategic reasons, we changed our funding strategy and are currently Considering a strategic corporate entity and the potential sponsorship of our first two years’ budget requirements.

The funding would be utilised for CAPEX related purposes such as platform and app development. In addition to pre-operation costs associated with licensing, office leasing and hiring key resources. Finally, to cover post operation costs such as covering our user acquisition costs and cashflow requirements,” he explains.

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Entrepreneurs need to plan a sustainable strategy ahead of time – not only an exit strategy.

Key drivers of success Hayya recently participated in StartAD Fintech Launchpad, which qualified the concept within the top finalists, and shortlisted it as a potential seed funding recipient post an intensive six-week mentoring program.

Some of the key drivers that influenced the acceptance of the Hayya as a concept include its clear definition of its customer segment is. Although many would identify innovation with a break-through idea, true business innovation is achieved by identifying a “non-customer” segment, and tailor products and services for this segment. We believe that we identified such a segment that still relies on cash and offline traditional modes of payments. This is a key milestone which is aligned to the UAE government’s initiatives to create a cashless economy,” reasons Amro.

Moreover, having a prototype made communicating the concept easier, especially when the prototype has an attractive UI and simple UX. “We tested our hypothesis and concept through interviews and the development of our prototype app which gave us valuable feedback from potential early adopters.”

Not getting lost in the crowd With a lot being said and done in the field of fintech and payments, how does Amro set himself apart from the buzz and

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Entrepreneurs will also need to develop business models that give users or clients the confidence to use your product or service.

stay true his actual purpose? “Fintech is a hot topic now. However, it’s important for aspiring entrepreneurs to understand local regulations and keep up with them.

Entrepreneurs will also need to develop business models that give users or clients the confidence to use your product or service. Such business models shouldn’t be limited to establishing corporate partnerships and connecting to APIs, but should also include a robust risk management framework that undertake quarterly or semi-annual reviews of API providers and fintech related open sources,” responds Amro.

Race to the finish line Today, as most large financial institutions are making the transformation to digital, Amro knows he is vying for a competitive space. Yet, this doesn’t deter him from his

final objective. “For Hayya, we will start small by focusing on our core capabilities and enhancing our value proposition with a focus on the UAE. There is no doubt that entrepreneurship is a very challenging and lonely journey. To overcome this, I fuel my passion and staying focused. Entrepreneurs generally have a hard time to stay focused on their minimum viable product and core capabilities. So, staying focused is crucial.

As for fuelling my passion, our brand promise is to make a social impact in our communities by empowering the social culture. This promise is what gets me out of bed every morning irrelevant of any challenges,” he opens up.

Hayya, in Arabic, can be literally translated to ‘Let’s go’, an exact representation of where Amro is with his concept. All systems in place, with a dream to achieve - Let’s go?

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Health beyond borders Each individual should have access to the best doctors at a time they need it the most. Young start-up HeyDoc is making that a reality with its platform for connected healthcare.

EDITOR’S PICKS 01. His app was installed over 3000 times and about five to 10 interactions took place daily through the platform.

02. Ahmad isn’t the trial and error type of entrepreneur. He has a strategic plan for his business and he ensures that he’s ticking all the right boxes as he passes each milestone.

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eyDoc! is a telemedicine platform that connects patients anywhere with doctors anywhere for the purpose of medical advisory when they are struggling with a non-urgent medical issue. Through HeyDoc!, patients can communicate with highly qualified doctors to seek medical advice, get a second opinion or get an update on their existing medical progress.

“When we launched the pilot version of our app in September 2016, we focused on validating the many assumptions we made, getting customer traction on the app and listening to their feedback. We spoke to our users on a daily basis noting the issues they faced and the ideas they had for enhancement,” says Ahmad looking back to the time he founded HeyDoc. During that period, his app was installed over 3000 times and about five to 10 interactions took place daily through the platform. After a successful close of the pilot phase in March 2017, Ahmad’s team started working on HeyChat! - a new feature that the app was adding to its existing functionality. “When we first launched our pilot, our goal was to target

the UAE as a starting point and then continue expanding. But our first advisory came from Chicago, second from Vienna and third from Nigeria. Then we started getting advisories from the UAE and the region. That’s when we realised that we are a global platform. In fact, over the course of our pilot stage, we have recruited doctors from the US to Malaysia and have had patients from all over the world.”

Checking the vital signs Ahmad isn’t the trial and error type of entrepreneur. He has a strategic plan for his business and he ensures that he’s ticking all the right boxes as he passes each milestone.

From the very onset, he’s had a clear plan to gain traction and industry support for his business as is evident from the competitions he’s won in the recent past: The Pitcher Istanbul 2017; ShortList Dubai’s Health App of the Year 2016; Ministry of Health X-Innovation Challenge 2016; and WSA - most innovative health solution in the UAE. HeyDoc has also been shortlisted in several regional competitions such as: MBC ElShabab - top 30 (so far); MIT Enterprise Forum - Innovate for

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Healthcare has seen quite a lot of innovation in the last century on the technology front, but the way we communicate with doctors and entire hospital-patient experience has been the same for the past 100 years.

Established: February 29, 2016 Employees: 6

Year on year growth: 240% Unique selling point: An award-winning telemedicine platform that connects patients, anywhere, with doctors, anywhere for the purpose of medical advisory for non-urgent health issues.

Challenge takeaway: Nothing ever goes according to plan, plan accordingly! Be agile and lean and always think “how can I do things differently to distinguish myself from the crowd!”

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Refugees; SME Beyond Borders - Pitch Please; Dubai Chamber’s Smartpreneur; and Dubai Future Competition.

Meanwhile, in terms of funding, Ahmad secured US$ 100,000 in December 2016 from prominent angel investor Maan El Rayes, who is now a Board Member and Strategic Advisor to the company. “I foresee this funding being fundamental in growing our patient base, scaling up the team, enhancing the platform and streamlining the technology we use. All of which, of course, ultimately adds to our revenue,” he explains.

The holistic approach to healthcare, the focus he had on building innovation in communication channels, the team and his expertise in health tech, the global scalability of the platform and potential market for it are key factors that make Ahmad’s offer attractive.

“Think outside of the box and differently, have a solid coherent team, have some sort

of traction and most importantly understand your customers and what they really want with real life engagement and not just surveys. This is not just important for investors but for the start-up itself.”

Operation scaling up As a young SME owner, Ahmad is currently grappling with the challenges of setting up his team, while still being agile and lean.

He says: “Having the wrong people within your team is like cancer to the start-up.

Finding the right people is probably one of the toughest challenges a start-up has to face. As start-ups, we are always in a rush, whether its getting to market, building the right platform, getting traction, raising funding or hiring people. We tend to get caught up in the speed of doing things, ultimately hurting the business. This can greatly impact the business negatively as it causes delays which

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in turn becomes a domino effect and affects all the other subsequent activities and goals you have. It will affect the kind of decisions you make in relation to the business model, product development, business development and marketing strategies. In addition and most importantly will affect the quality of your product.

“Another aspect which could negatively impact the business is not being lean and agile. Perfect is the enemy, focusing on a perfect product will lead to start-ups focusing on the little things and forgetting the big picture. The goal is to launch a product, get customers and bring revenue not build XYZ feature, have X products/services on board or ALL sections ready. Customers want a functioning product and can understand initial teething problems.”

Ahmad made a conscious decision to only engage with people he found the right fit in

and NOT compromise not one bit. “We also built a system that identifies whats important and whats really important – this helps us launch services, learn from our customer’s behaviours, fix what really matter and go on. But obviously whatever we launch should work, a very buggy product is not to be mistaken for the goal here.”

A healthy outlook for the future “We always ponder over what the future will look like five years from now. What will customers actually want and how can we be ready for it? Our improvements need to fall in line with what customers say and what technology will evolve into,” quips Ahmad.

To achieve this objective, he’s focusing his efforts on product development, process optimisation, finding the best way to optimise the feedback and enhancement loops and making sure he’s deploying his team’s efforts in the best possible way.

He is always looking into new technologies to implement to enhance his platform and the backend processes that help develop it (from server and product optimisation, task management, source control and security). “We have seen this aspect grow and evolve quite well the past two years and hope for it to keep evolving over the next few years especially that we live in a world with dispersed teams connected online. We don’t need to sit in the same office to get things done, anyone can sit anywhere with a laptop and an internet connection and their productivity would remain the same if not become better.”

Healthcare has seen quite a lot of innovation in the last century on the technology front, but the way we communicate with doctors and entire hospital-patient experience has been the same for the past 100 years. This is exactly what HeyDoc! is doing, it is innovating on the communication front and trying to develop new means to enhance and streamline this communication and enhance the patient journey and experience. As we are in an AI (Artificial Intelligence) first world, this is one of the main innovations that we will start seeing integrated and implemented in the healthcare world.

“One approach would be to recommend patients the right doctor by understanding their symptoms and their health issues.

Another approach would be coupling AI with machine learning and integrated wearable/ smart home devices to detect and sense changes in their vital signs and thus connect them to the right doctor or recommend that its time for a checkup, he concludes.

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A glimpse into the future of work Elements like flexible and remote working or ondemand employment aren’t really things we’ll see in the future, they are happening now. What we will, however, see shaping the future of work is how employers upskill their teams. Sonal Sodha, Founder, Acivva Consulting, shares her insights...

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. A lot of education needs to happen, companies continue to operate thinking this change will take long to come, it is already here!

02. The personal economy will take over and people will realise that they continuously need to upgrade their skills, fundamental change needs to come from school and university curriculum.

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irstly, where do you think we’re headed in terms of the future of work and talent mobility?

Can you identify the top three trends that will impact the future of workplaces?

The future of work is being defined by a new breed of workers who are tapping into algorithm matching platforms to turn their skills (and spare time) into new income streams. In doing so they are building a completely new operating system for the world of work. Work will move from being Dystopian from having to work to survive to Utopian –to being free to work to follow your calling.

Talent pools will be shared through various assignments and organisations. No longer do companies need to hire anyone fulltime nor do employees need to be committed to one employer. The talent market place will become a brokering of internal and external talent, with a work-to-be-done opportunity to be based on

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No longer do companies need to hire anyone fulltime nor do employees need to be committed to one employer.

who you are and what you want to achieve.

This will help both the Gen Y and Z who want to work to fit their lifestyle as cater to Gen X who can continue to be employed even though they have become expensive for a business.

In your role, how do you see yourself influencing the future of work?

A lot of education needs to happen, companies continue to operate thinking this change will take long to come, it is already here! Work will change to match the Uber times that we are in.

We also need to address the current skills gap that exist in the Uber world and how can we continuously bridge this gap.

Do you think robot employees are as big as a deal as people are making them out to be? How do you see AI disrupting traditional workplaces?

The innovation work in AI & AR is moving at supersonic speed, organisations need to embrace change faster to ensure that they manage to carve out a role for employees at work.

How can organisations ensure that they have the right skills for the future?

The skills gap is getting wider and wider day by day, some of our jobs will be irrelevant

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with the transformations that are coming.

Organisations need to evolve their technical skills, some companies focus too much on leadership skills whilst others only on technical skills, a balance needs to be found. Whilst it might be expensive to train everyone, other alternatives need to available, like allowing employees to rotate in other functions or provide partial funding for some technical skills, i.e. coding skills will become a necessity soon how many companies have even though or prepared for it?

Will we have higher unemployment in the future? Or will we find similar levels of employment with jobs requiring more advanced skills? Will training play a major role?

The personal economy will take over and people will realise that they continuously need to upgrade their skills, fundamental

change needs to come from school and university curriculum. Early adapters will benefit the most. Training will continue to play a major role however it will need to move from classroom training to on the job training as training will be dynamic and continuous.

We have come a long way in terms of gender parity in the workplace. But, are we there yet? What initiatives do companies need to continue undertake to ensure we are moving in the right direction?

The road to gender parity continues and will need to continue even stronger and faster.

Companies especially in our region need to consider the options of part time working and change their policies towards attracting a balanced workforce. We have seen initiatives like longer maternity leaves, working from home, sabbaticals, career breaks to help look after elderly parents etc. Pay parity between

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The road to gender parity continues and will need to continue even stronger and faster.

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Companies need to have a clear inclusive and diversity agenda.

genders need to be bridged but companies need to go further than this to attract and retain talent. Companies need to have a clear inclusive and diversity agenda. We should also learn from our government and how they are pushing the gender agenda.

We often talk about the impact and link between workplace design and productivity, but how many organisations truly understand the impact the workplace has on their staff and their performance?

Companies are beginning to understand the link between workplace design and productivity though the trend is slow.

However they also need to consider the culture of the organisation. I feel we still treat employees as children, they must follow rules at work and this is because one person probably broke the rule and we punish everyone and create more rules.

The whole equation of the workplace environment needs to work well which is workplace design, culture, engagement SME ADVISOR

which will lead to higher productivity.

Companies now must address intergeneration at work – Gen X, Y, Z – needs are totally different yet we have one size fit policy for all.

Finally, what advice would you give to companies looking to future-proof their offices for the future?

Here is my challenge to companies: Our business world is changing at lightning speed, technology is transforming products and services, new competitors continue to appear in the most unlikely places.

The workforce is shape-shifting with entry of the millennials and GenZs. These “digital natives” are leading the way in defining the future of work for all generations. As these younger employees utilise their online skills to access income streams outside traditional business settings, the talent pool becomes a leaky bucket. How relevant is your business and your people strategy to survive in this everchanging landscape? Will you remain a market leader in the world of constant disruption?

Advice – get prepared!

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The first step in

FUNDING

Samy El Sheikh of SMELaw.com shares a few tips from on how to prepare yourself for the all-important seed round stage.

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uring the past three years, the economic cycle of the region, coupled with the influx of western-educated college graduates returning to the gulf, spurred an enormous level of attention to start-ups and technology, and spurred a venture focus that was hardly seen before. Young and capable entrepreneurs (commonly referred to as “Founder(s)”) and seasoned venture stage investors started coming together and looked to combine efforts to build business and generate value in the region. Naturally, these ventures looked to the US’s thriving venture capital market for inspiration. And with that, the terms, Seed and Series A started being used commonly.

It is worth taking a moment to fully explain the first real investment a founder

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receives, the seed round, and set out what the parties expect to see in such round. First, we start with the question, what is a Seed Round: In simple words, the Seed Round is the first organised investment round received into a business from a third-party investor. Founders commonly raise seed round during or at the end of the proof-of concept stage of the business and is geared to obtain funding to be able to launch a product as a service (“Seed Round”). Before the Seed Round, the business would have been funded by the founders and some of the “three Fs”, friends, family and fools. But because this is an organised investment by third parties who are mostly professional investors, founders should expect this to be different, and to mark a change in the life of business.

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. In simple words, the Seed Round is the first organised investment round received into a business from a third-party investor.

02. Before the Seed Round, the business would have been funded by the founders and some of the “three Fs”, friends, family and fools.

““

The Seed Round is a very critical step for a business as it marks its graduation from a project that the founders are passionate about to a business others believe in.

Phases of the Seed Round Founders seeking to raise a seed round start by applying for funding with various venture capitals and angels. This process commonly involves many demands, meetings will include a one or two pages’ teaser about the business and a well-prepared pitch presentation. This process ends with an investor or a syndication of investors offering a term sheet to the Founders setting out a proposed investment terms.

What is a Term Sheet?

Once a Founder receives a term sheet, it is highly advisable that she/she appoints a counsel to help with the rest of the transaction. But it is also common to see Seed Round without founders’ counsel if the investment amount is small. The term sheet commonly sets out the following terms: 1. Subscribed shares by the parties.

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2. Pre-valuation of the company and its authorised capital.

3. Distribution of shares amongst the shareholders.

4. Amount of investment injected in the company and the milestone (if any) set to reach this agreed investment.

5. Agreed liquidation preference rights.

6. Management of the company.

7. Transfer restrictions.

8. Employees share option plan (if applicable).

9. Intellectual property (“IP”) rights.

10. Confidentiality and non-compete provisions.

11. Governing law and the competent jurisdiction.

Once a Term Sheet is signed, the Founder and the Investor are ethically committed to negotiate and reach closing on an investment into the business. And with that

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““

Founders seeking to raise a seed round start by applying for funding with various venture capitals and angels.

commitment, the lawyers can proceed with the drafting of the Definitive Agreements.

The Definitive Agreements

ϭϭ Subscription agreement: An

agreement where all the parties and the company undertake their representations and warranties, the allotment and issuance of subscribed shares.

ϭϭ Shareholders’ agreement: An

agreement to draw the relationship between the shareholders and the legal structure of the company, this agreement will include more details on most of the points agreed on in the Term Sheet.

ϭϭ IP assignment agreement: To ensure

that the founder will assign and transfer

to the company all the copyrights and IP related to the Project, including but not limited to (trademarks, domain names, etc.).

ϭϭ Founders’ agreement: An agreement

between the founder and the company to ensure his/her commitment to the company and to avoid any malpractice by the founder. This agreement is usually requested by the investor to protect their investment.

The above-mentioned agreements, in principal are considered the core of any Seed Round for a tech-start-up. Naturally, some cases of course vary and founders should not be rigid about variation.

Completion Once the Definitive Agreements are negotiated and finalised, and closing takes

place, (i.e. Funds are wired) the process is perfected by the various issuance of shares, enactment of resolutions, appointments of directors, and putting in place the new management structure.

The Seed Round is a very critical step for a business as it marks its graduation from a project that the founders are passionate about to a business others believe in. it is important for all parties involved to complete the round and enter the new chapter in the life of the business with strong and well organised documents. We always advise the founders to think about choosing the right fund needed for the business and not necessary the biggest one, for the investors to exercise a proper due diligence on the business and make sure that it is fully understood from their side before taking a decision of funding.

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A lot has been written and said about blockchain as a technology and the raft of benefits it offers to businesses.

But, what is still unclear is how can companies integrate it within current systems? How does one practically implement it? To answer these questions, we reached out to the renowned experts Vasilis Kostakis, Primavera de Filippi and Wolfgang Drechsler. They share a detailed blueprint with clear steps to undertake at each junction.

GETTING PRACTICAL ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN

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EDITOR’S PICKS 01. Blockchain has the ability to “codify” transactions by deploying small snippets of code directly onto the blockchain.

02. The initial implementation and use of the blockchain represents the most vulnerable time since embedding vulnerabilities at inception have the greatest chance of success and going undetected in the future.

T

he headlong pace of technological change produces giant leaps forward in knowledge, innovation, new possibilities and, almost inevitably, legal problems. That’s now the case with blockchain, today’s buzziest new tech tool.

Introduced in 2008 as the technology underpinning Bitcoin, a digital currency that is created and held electronically without any central authority, blockchain is a secure digital ledger for any kind of data.

It simplifies record keeping and reduces transaction costs.

Its range of applications in commerce, finance and potentially politics continues to widen, and that has triggered a debate around how to regulate the tool.

Goodbye middleman Because it does not require a centralised authority to verify and validate transactions, blockchain enables people who may not trust each other to interact and coordinate directly. With blockchain, there is no middleman in peer-to-peer exchanges; instead, users rely on a decentralised network of computers that interact through a cryptographic, secure protocol.

Blockchain has the ability to “codify” transactions by deploying small snippets of code directly onto the blockchain. This code, generally referred to as a “smart contract”, executes automatically when certain conditions are met.

An early example of smart contracts is the corporate-oriented digital rights management (DRM) systems limiting uses of digital files. Having DRM on your eBook may restrict access to copying, editing, and printing content.

With blockchain, smart contracts have become more complex and, arguably, more secure. In theory, they will always be

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““

Blockchain and implementations based on it heavily depend on the keys that they use to operate.

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ASSERTION

BLOCKCHAIN VALUE PROPOSITION

OCCURRENCE

If it’s on the chain, it took place

COMPLETENESS

Explicit agreement to use the chain for all transactions by trading partners

ACCURACY

Transaction accuracy is reinforced by the trading partners and available for review.

CUTOFF

The transaction are recorded when they occur - real - time accounting.

CLASSIFICATION

Could be forced to be acknowledged on the chain.

EXISTENCE

If it’s not on the chain, it did not happen.

RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS

Documented as part of the transaction and available for review.

COMPLETENESS

The entire transaction is available for review.

VALUE & ALLOCATION

The transaction is available for review and establishing its value is available to all trading partners executed exactly as planned, since no one party has the power to alter the code binding a given transaction.

In practice, however, eliminating trusted brokers from a transaction can create some kinks.

One high-profile smart-contract failure happened to the DAO, a decentralised autonomous organisation for venture capital funding. Launched in April 2016, the DAO quickly raised over US$150 million via crowdfunding. Three weeks later, someone managed to exploit a vulnerability in the DAO’s code, draining approximately US$50 million worth of digital currency from the fund.

The security problem originated not in the blockchain itself but rather from issues with the smart-contract code used to administer

the DAO. Questions arose about the legality of the act, with some people arguing that since the hack was actually permitted by the smart-contract code, it was a perfectly legitimate action. After all, in cyberspace, “code is law”.

The DAO debate raised this key question: should the intention of the code prevail over the wording of the code?

A new legal realm Blockchain proponents envision a future in which entire companies and governments operate in a distributed and automated fashion. But smart contracts pose a series of enforceability issues, which are outlined in a recent white paper by the London law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.

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Technological developments, on the other hand, are often oriented toward profit and change.

How can we resolve disputes arising over a self-executing smart contract? How do we identify what types of contractual terms can be properly translated into code, and which ones should instead be left to natural language? And is there a way combine the two?

It is not yet clear that code can address the necessary levels of complexity to replace legal language. After all, the vagueness inherent in the language of law is a feature, not a bug: it compensates for unforeseeable cases that must be assessed on a case-bycase basis in a court of law.

Traditional contracts acknowledge that no law can index the entire complexity of life as it is, let alone predict its future development.

They also precisely define terms that can be enforced by law.

Smart contracts, by contrast, are simply snippets of code both defined and enforced by the code underpinning the blockchain infrastructure. Currently, they do not have any legal recognition. This means that when something goes wrong in a smart contract, parties have no legal recourse.

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The DAO’s founders painfully learned this lesson last year.

The creative friction of the law If blockchain technologies are ever to go mainstream, governments will have to set up new legal frameworks to accommodate such complexities.

Positive law prescribes behaviour and penalises non-compliance. It can encapsulate the normative ideal that a respective government seeks to achieve, demonstrate an ethical vision for society or reify the power structure of the current regime.

Technological developments, on the other hand, are often oriented toward profit and change. There’s an inherent tension here. Laws may delay the development of technology and hence hurt the competitive advantage of an entrepreneur or even a state.

Take the case of nanotechnology regulation in the European Union versus in the United States. European law so mitigates risks that it may end up limiting the

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If blockchain technologies are ever to go mainstream, governments will have to set up new legal frameworks to accommodate such complexities.

technology’s potential, losing its competitive edge against the US. That’s another fact about the law: slow and reactive, it can be a gross annoyance.

But ever since technological advances began speeding along on an exponential curve last century, the law has played a critical role in helping societies maintain certain previously negotiated standards for cohabitation.

Our legal system may sometimes seem antiquated in today’s fast-moving world. But before changing our laws to accommodate new technologies that may (re)define our lives, it is important to have room for debate and time for social struggles to take place.

The law serves this function of creative friction. It can restore human agency against fierce technological development.

Given all the excitement over blockchain technologies, it is probable that interested

parties will soon enough seek legal recognition and state-sanctioned enforceability of smart contracts.

These emerging technologies are still too new to have been subjected to a sufficiently thorough analysis of their social, economic and political implications. More time is also needed to assess how blockchain could be deployed in a socially beneficial way.

Blockchain technology seems poised to constitute an important component of tomorrow’s society. The legal system – slowpaced as it is – might be just what we need at this juncture to ensure that this new tool is deployed in a way consistent with established principles and values, with the common good at its core.

IN COLLABORATION WITH

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In v ent i on of the month 096

INGENIOUS INVENTION OF THE MONTH:

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In fact, it is a service that is one of its kind and unique in what it’s trying to achieve.

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DO YOU HAVE AN INGENIOUS INVENTION THAT YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH US? TWEET TO US @SMEADVISORME USING #INGENIOUSINVENTION!

Find out more about this service at tribalingual.com.

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09

NOVEMBER 2017

D U B A I

JW MARRIOTT MARQUIS SME ADVISOR

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09

NOVEMBER 2017

D U B A I

JW MARRIOTT MARQUIS

SME ADVISOR

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SME BEYOND BORDERS 2017 FOREWORD It's been a manic month, here at the SME Advisor HQ. With our special bumper edition and our annual SME Beyond Borders conference, we've been keeping busy, to put it lightly. The funny part is this time of the year is arguably the most enjoyable time for the entire team. I know it sounds like a cliche. But, it's absolutely true. Let me explain why.

Everything we do throughout the year somehow converges into SME Beyond Borders. Every video, every article, every client interaction inherently has an element of our conference intertwined within it. More importantly, as a team, it binds us all towards one common goal: to deliver an annual event that adds value to the SME community. Whether that's

value in terms of access to international experts, networking with potential clients, preparing you to lead the future of your business or simply value in terms of giving you a day out of managing your business to come celebrate how far you've come. No matter which bracket you choose to fall into, if you've walked out of the conference with ONE element that can add value to your business, we've achieved our objective.

It is the thrill of creating something of this magnitude, and We’re not referring to scale here, but rather impact, that makes this the most enjoyable time of the year for us. And, we truly hope that you enjoy attending it as much as we've enjoyed putting it together.

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Pitch PLEASE! PRESENTS

INCUBATOR CHALLENGE

They’ve pitched as individuals, but now they’re representing their incubators!

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uilding on the success of last year’s edition, Pitch Please is back again, and this time with an interesting twist!

For the first time ever, start-ups are competing while representing their parent accelerators and incubators.

Here’s what we did. Pitch Please invited incubators and accelerators from across the country to nominate their top start-ups to participate in the pitching competition.

Amongst the ones we reached out, in5, startAD, C3, Dtec and Turn8 responded by nominating their respective outstanding start-ups.

The idea was to get start-ups from different accelerators in the region on one platform, which has never been done before. Not only does this help cross-collaboration, but proves to be an intense, yet exciting competition.

Speaking on C3’s participation, Medea Nocentini, Founder of the programme, said: “At C3, we believe that the future of business is social: first, societal challenges provide entrepreneurs with exciting opportunities to make a change in the world through business; second, companies that positively contribute to society have better chances to succeed in attracting the new generations of sociallyconscious consumers and investors.”

Pitch Please – with a purpose More than a competition, Pitch Please is an opportunity for the region’s young start-ups to gain confidence, perfect their pitch and attract investors. That’s exactly why the leading apparel and footwear brand KSwiss is supporting the initiative. The brand is committed to supporting the progress of up and coming entrepreneurs.

Salman Basheer, Brand Manager, K-Swiss, said: “As a business with humble beginnings that has grown organically, we resonate with the challenges, trials and tests that every start-up has to go through. Even as we’ve scaled across borders, entrepreneurship has always remained in our DNA. We want to support start-ups from all around the world in any way we possibly can. We are therefore very pleased to collaborate with SME Beyond Borders, which perfectly fits with our mission as well as with our entrepreneurship-inspired collection Gen-K.” K-Swiss is also endorsed by entrepreneurial guru and self-made businessman Gary Vaynerchuk, who shared a few words of inspiration with the competing start-ups: “I wish all you youngsters understood the entrepreneurship landscape.

If you want to win, eliminate the outside voices. As an entrepreneur so many more of us exist and there are so many more opportunities. It doesn’t matter what school you went to, it doesn’t matter what your grandpa’s last name is, it’s a market and if you’re good enough, you’re good enough.

The people we all look up to didn’t listen to anybody, they broke the system, they didn’t follow the path. What they did was go the other way when everyone else wanted to go in a certain direction. They tripled down on their strengths against the narrative of society. Do you have courage to live it the way they want to, the courage to listen to the voice inside your head and take that step in the other direction to the rest of your life?”

The winner takes it all The grand prize for the winner includes free 1-year digital and print advertising by CPI Business as well as a 3-minute video describing their success story. The startup, along with a representative from the accelerator it belongs to, will also receive an award at the Stars of Business Awards Gala.

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MEET THE START-UPS

HEALTHIGO

HALAKIWI

MONEY NANNY

ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: in5

ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: in5

ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: in5

ENTREPRENEUR: Joseph Debs, Co-founder.

ENTREPRENEUR: Hamza Abdurrahman, Business Developer.

ENTREPRENEUR: Nadya Tereshina, Founder.

CONCEPT: Healthigo is a healthcare app that connects patients to a wide range of healthcare providers. Some of its functions include personalised appointment booking, recommendations of healthcare solutions based on insurance, lifestyle news, emergency response systems and health reminders.

Potential to impact the future of… healthcare.

CONCEPT: Halakiwi is an app that connects restaurants with customers by providing the allure of offers. On one hand, restaurants can check if there any events or happenings around them and provide offers customised to those occasions.

On the other hand, customers can check for offers around them and enjoy significant savings.

Potential to impact the future of…retail.

CONCEPT: The platform is the best combination of finance and lifestyle features that allows users to keep track of their finances, savings and expenses. Think of it more than just a budget controller because it uses machine learning to help users make better decisions.

Potential to impact the future of… finance.

ONE LINE PITCH: Patient experience redefined.

ONE LINE PITCH: Free vouchers for restaurants around you.

ONE LINE PITCH: Your conscious, your friend, your guide.

WEBSITE: www.healthigo.com

WEBSITE: www.halakiwi.com

WEBSITE: www.money-nanny.com SME ADVISOR

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CLIP THE DEAL ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: c3 ENTREPRENEUR: Padam Chhabra, Co-founder & CEO. CONCEPT: Clip the deal is an app that reaches out to prominent hypermarkets and supermarkets to get coupons for customers. It means users can save money on grocery brands. The idea behind the concept is to digitise the traditional coupon leaflet marketing.

Potential to impact the future of…retail.

ONE LINE PITCH: Save big on your favourite products.

WEBSITE: www.clipthedeal.com/AE/home

YALLA PICK UP ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: Dtec ENTREPRENEUR: Elie El Tom, Founder & CEO CONCEPT: Simply put, Yalla pickup is an app as well as a web portal that allows users to find and book the nearest truck available. What’ particularly attractive is that the goods on the vehicles are insured and managed by experienced drivers. The app is user friendly and has the option to pin current location, flexible payment methods and so on.

Potential to impact the future of…transport.

ONE LINE PITCH: A smart way to book a pickup truck.

WEBSITE: www.yalla-pickup.com

DEMOCRANCE ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: C3 ENTREPRENEUR: Michele Grosso, Co-founder & CEO. CONCEPT: Democrance is an insurance technology company that creates partnerships between insurers and mobile operators to reach out to a unique demographic. The company is offering a ground-breaking solution by giving users the chance to access insurance through their mobile phones without the need for a bank account. What this means is that insurance is now available to those within the low-income population segment.

Potential to impact the future of…insurance ONE LINE PITCH: Bringing two key industries, insurance and telecommunications, to make a social impact and provide insurance to those who need it the most.

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WEBSITE: www.democrance.com

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TAKA SOLUTIONS ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: c3 ENTREPRENEUR: Charles Blaschke, Managing Director CONCEPT: Taka Solutions is on a mission to help reduce the world’s energy consumption by integrating its technology within buildings and homes. It uses engineering, financing and management to optimize building energy consumption. Potential to impact the future of…energy.

ONE LINE PITCH: Taka Solutions is on a mission to help reduce the world’s energy consumption by integrating its technology within buildings and homes. It uses engineering, financing and management to optimize building energy consumption.

Potential to impact the future of…energy.

WEBSITE: www.takasolutions.com

LEGALINTRO ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: in5 ENTREPRENEUR: Karim Shiyab, Director.

CONCEPT: Users can connect to a professional lawyer using the platform depending on the issue they are facing. Legalintro basically provides as the medium to connect lawyers to their user base. In addition to this, it also offers a document creation service that allows users to create legal documents at a fixed price.

Potential to impact the future of…law.

ONE LINE PITCH: Seek legal advice with a few clicks.

WEBSITE: www.legalintro.com

HEYDOC ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: in5 ENTREPRENEUR: Ahmad Al-Hidiq CONCEPT: A telemedicine platform that connects patients to the medical consultants that are best suited to their needs. It also promotes healthy lifestyle and basic medical advisory. Through HeyDoc, patients can communicate with a suite of highly-qualified doctors to seek advice.

Potential to impact the future of…healthcare.

ONE LINE PITCH: Every doctor, a tap away!

WEBSITE: www.heydoc.net SME ADVISOR

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MISTBOX ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: Turn8 ENTREPRENEUR: Ata Ghofrani, General Manager.

CONCEPT: Mistbox is a smart device that uses sensors to detect the operation of an air conditioning unit. The device uses proprietary technologies to ensure mist doesn’t harm the operation of your A/C unit.

Potential to impact the future of…energy.

ONE LINE PITCH: A smart device to optimize your air conditioning unit’s output and functionality..

WEBSITE: www.mistbox.com

EBUCKS ACCELERATOR/INCUBATOR: startAD ENTREPRENEUR: Artem Misiurenko, Founder.

CONCEPT: Using blockchain technology, ebucks is a mobile payment platform that allows users to transfer money to each other without any additional fee.

Potential to impact the future of…payments.

ONE LINE PITCH: Payments made simpler.

WEBSITE: N/A

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S TA R S O F B U S I N E SS LEADERSHIP AWARDS 2017

KEEPING THE COUNTRY’S SME ECOSYSTEM VIBRANT

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017 was a year that tested our limits.

It pushed businesses to not just transform themselves, but to also enhance their capabilities and prepare themselves for the future economy.

Even so, SMEs across the country have pulled up their socks and quadrupled their efforts to meet their objectives.

We’ve seen mid-market enterprises at the helm of their respective industries gear up for the advent of technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain.

This has been enabled by government support and its vision for the future. The UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the government’s blockchain ambition and DIFC’s prestigious Fintech Hive are all steps to fuel the advancement of high-end SMEs looking to expand and scale.

We’ve seen some growth-stage companies scale-up using lean and agile methodologies

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despite difficulties in capacity building and talent management. To this extent, new learning platforms have come to the forefront to provide niche subject-based training and update young talent with skills of the future. Not just that, but companies are also introducing in-house educational initiatives to ensure that employees are being nurtured all year around.

We’ve also experienced a surge in high-tech start-ups that are making a dent in established industries with a promise to transform the way business is done. Whether it’s through the support of accelerators or by bootstrapping cash, entrepreneurs in the region are determined to make an impact.

Finally, as part of our support to the SME ecosystem, we’ve worked to bring back an Awards ceremony that not only focuses on all these above-mentioned achievements of

the sector, but one that also brings to the forefront local heroes that are behind this success. Acknowledging businesses for their growth is the easy part, but being the stepping stones to their success is what really matters. And, that is what Stars of Business Leadership Awards aspires to be. By giving over 50 nominees and over 1000 applications a chance to get in front of industry trailblazers, financiers and government officials, we hope to add another dimension to their growth.

As we come to the close of a dynamic year and approach another defining year for local businesses, we want to give SMEs an occasion to meet their peers, discuss what worked and what didn’t, look back at the peaks and pitfalls, and most important of all - just breathe. You’ve done a great job coming this far, and guess what? We think you’re just getting started!

MEET THE JURY

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We’re delighted to announce that Stars of Business Leadership Awards 2017 is working with a prestigious jury that comprises of the following industry titans -

AMIR FARHA

CRAIG MOORE

NASSER H.BATHA

CO-FOUNDER AND CIO BECO Capital

FOUNDER & CEO BEEHIVE

CEO EMAAR INDUSTRIES & INVESTMENTS

SHAHRAM HASHEMI

MUSTAFA KHERIBA

NAJLA ALMIDFA

HEAD OF STRATEGY & PLANNING RAKEZ

COO ADFG

GENERAL MANAGER SHERAA

Malcolm Wright

TRIXIE LOHMIRMAND

VALERIE LINDSAY

HEAD OF PARTNER COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION Oman Insurance Company & Bupa Global

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS MANAGEMENT DWTC

PROFESSOR AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH SME ADVISOR

YOUR GATEWAY TO SME BEYOND BORDERS Our official event mobile app has everything you need to maximise your time at SME Beyond Borders. Let’s walk you through some of the key aspects and explain how it all works.

MEET THE SPEAKERS Pretty self-explanatory. Get a glimpse of our futurists and familiarise yourself with them before their sessions.

TAKE NOTES & MARK FAVOURITES Fair warning: there’s a lot of information going to be thrown at you throughout the day. Take advantage of this feature to note down key points and highlight favourites so that they don’t slip off your mind.

STAY ON TRACK WITH THE SCHEDULE We understand that you’ll want to stay for some sessions in particular, so this is where you can track time and manage your day effectively. Also, any changes in the schedule will be reflected here in real-time.

WHAT’S GOING ON Here’s where all the action will unveil live!

Catch real-time updates and stay tuned to every bit of the action taking place on stage.

GET NOTIFICATIONS Every time something significant happens, we have to keep you in the loop! Trust us, we don’t want you to miss out on any of the fun.

NETWORK WITH OTHER ATTENDEES SME Beyond Borders is the one place where the entire SME community converges taking a day out from their busy schedules. From investors, suppliers, fellow SME owners and public sector representatives, you never know who you might find to help you with your business. Use our private message feature to view and connect with other attendees.