digital innovation 2 edition - … · digital innovation 2017 barcelona mobile world congress issue...

DIGITAL INNOVATION

2017 Barcelona Mobile World Congress issue – Highlighting Zain Group’s transformation journey

2ND EDITION

www.zain.comTHOUGHT LEADERSHIP REPORT 2017

LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY TO PROTECT THE

RIGHTS OF CHILDREN

Child Abuse Mag 19.5x26 E AW.indd 2 2/22/17 5:46 PM

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Contents

2 Innovation is not a choice

It has become abundantly clear in recent years that innovation is the fuel to the telco and other hi-tech industries. Without it, companies lose relevance and ultimately fall away. At Zain, we embrace innovation

3 Growing Zain’s corporate culture and empowering youth Zain’s focus on cultural and youth development has blossomed in recent years, and much of the credit for this is owed to the vision of its Vice Chairman

4 Everything in our strideThe things about the region that are challenging, are the very things that drive us to give of our best to overcome and offer our stakeholders service on par with the rest of the world

5 More entertainment than one could possibly imagineZain Group kicked off 2017 by announcing the establishment of an exciting JV with iflix, the world’s leading Internet TV service for emerging markets

6 Zain in motion – a look back at the highlights over the last 12 months

14 New brand, new horizons

Last year, Zain made a strategic investment in smart city technology specialist neXgen. At Mobile World Congress this year, neXgen announces its change of brand to NXN and unveiled its full turnkey smart city solution

15 Powered by the desire to leverage technologyZain’s approach to technology innovation includes valuable collaborations, most recently with Facebook-led Telecom Infra Project, and FOO

16 Protecting those who can’t protect themselvesZain Group is using its participation in Mobile World Congress 2017 to publicize the publication of its annual thought leadership report, this year entitled, ‘Leveraging Technology to Protect the Rights of Children’

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Innovation is not a choice

As a company, we are inspired by our sur-roundings, and driven to do the best we can for the people who relate to us – be they our customers, staff or wider stakeholders. We believe in doing better today than was done yesterday, and in this respect fully embrace the ability for new technology to be the driver of better and more efficient ways of doing things.

2016 was a year in which we continued to balance the enormous competitive pres-sures that exist across the eight markets in which we operate, with a focus on provid-ing the best customer experience possible. What this balancing act entails is a strong understanding of the market dynamics, a commitment to the operations, and a will-ingness to adopt a future-focused approach to investment.

Zain Group continues to manage these various dynamics effectively, with capital

It has become abundantly clear in recent years that innovation is the fuel to the telco and other hi-tech industries. Without it, companies lose relevance and ultimately fall away. At Zain, we embrace innovation

expenditure during the course of 2016 reaching US$635 million (excluding Zain Saudi Arabia). This represented 18% of Group revenues, reflecting Zain’s commitment to innovation and quality of service. This approach has also resulted in Zain being able to maintain its leadership position in the majority of the markets in which it operates, testament to the company’s highly valued brand reputation and focus on customer service.

Zain has driven partnerships with content providers, bringing exciting new and value adding applications to the region, many times, for the first time. We are embracing fully the collaborative approach to the generation and consumption of rich content, and our tie-ups with leading application developers such as Uber, Booking.com, and Zeptolab, stand as an example of just a few of the partners we are adding to our ecosystem. Our investments in NXN (formerly Nexgen), the smart cities technology specialist, and in FOO, the mobile solutions and consultancy, are further examples of our development of value adding propositions to our overall business.

Taken together, our efforts give us every confidence that we are continuing along the correct path to maintain our position as the mobile network operator from the region, for the region. Our transformation to become a truly digital lifestyle provider is well-advanced, and we shall continue to push the envelope given our experience and desire to provide the best and most advanced services available.

Yours sincerely, Asa’ad Al Banwan

Zain Group Chairman

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Bader Al Kharafi and Scott Gegenheimer were on-hand to welcome five talented Kuwaiti nationals who embarked on the ‘Generation Z’ initiative

Bader Al Kharafi honored by Huawei’s Mohammad Sharara for his support of the Zain Sailing team

in 2016. What makes these results more impressive is the fact that Zain’s sailing team continues to compromise mainly amateur sailors.

This year Zain again partnered with global technology provider Huawei and global law firm Clifford Chance to race the high-performance racing yacht, which includes corporate branding from all three partners. The Zain team continues to benefit from the close support and patronage of Zain Vice- Chairman, Bader Al Kharafi, who has been a central part of the sailing crew over the last two years.

Al Kharafi has also been highly instrumental in the development of training and mentor-ship within Zain Group, and was recently on-hand to welcome five talented Kuwaiti nationals who have been selected to par-ticipate in a year-long graduate training pro-gram, dubbed ‘Generation Z’. The recently revamped program is targeted at candidates who display high levels of entrepreneurial flair, who will be able to inject a startup mind-set during their time at Zain Group.

Growing Zain’s corporate culture and empowering youth

Zain’s focus on cultural and youth development has blossomed in recent years, and much of the credit for this is owed to the vision of its Vice Chairman

At this moment, a team from Zain Group is bat-tling its way through the waters of the Arabian Gulf as it competes in the seventh edition of the EFG Sailing Arabia - The Tour (SATT) 2017 competition, organized by Oman Sail.

The new 763 nautical-mile race commenced 14 February, 2017 and saw the fleet of identical Farr 30s start their campaign in Muscat. From there they headed north on the first leg to Sohar. The second leg takes took them to Khasab, the capital of the Musandam Peninsula, which was included in the Tour for the first time last year, before heading to Abu Dhabi in a 153 nautical-mile leg. It was back to sea for a 160 nautical-mile dash to Doha in Qatar, ahead of the last and longest leg to Dubai, with the race ending on 1 March, 2017.

With four of the five legs around the Arabian Gulf complete, Team Zain is placed a credible fourth overall, out of a field of eight. The Zain team has performed remarkably well over the previous two years that it has competed in the race, finishing a sensational third in 2015 and even winning one of the legs; and a solid fifth

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Everything in our stride

The things about the region that are challenging, are the very things that drive us to give of our best to overcome and offer our stakeholders service on par with the rest of the world

It would be easy for organizations such as ours that work exclusively within the region to resign themselves to the circumstances beyond their control as situations that will remain the status quo. At Zain we have a completely different outlook. Being from the region makes us totally committed to its upliftment and development, and while there are sometimes challenges and disadvantages we face, our overall posture is of positivity and of an enthusiasm to give of our best for all of our stakeholders.

This outlook is manifest in many different ways, and to highlight just a few, Zain Kuwait maintained its market leadership in a highly competitive climate. In Saudi Arabia in October 2016, and through a Royal Order, we received an extension of our telecommunications license by 15 Hijri years, effectively extending the con-cession term from 25 Hijri years to 40 Hijri years (from 29th March 2008 to 18th January 2047).

The High Order additionally granted Zain Saudi Arabia the opportunity to migrate to a unified telecommunications license that supports both service and technology neutrality. This develop-

ment allows us to provide all telecommunications services using ap-propriate technologies within our approved frequency bands, including fixed services which we plan to fully exploit for beneficial returns.

In Iraq, we announced the launch of the country’s first fully conver-gent billing system with Huawei, which will see customers enjoy a wider range of services at attractive price points. Our operations in Iraq and Jordan launched the “ZainCash” service to boost e-com-merce; both countries first online payment solution enhancing the livelihoods of their unbanked community.

In Jordan, ZINC has become the hub for all the operator’s modern-ization efforts and a meeting point for aspiring entrepreneurs, who are inspired by the success of other startups that have been fostered by the center.

With the launch of 4G services in Sudan earlier in 2016, we expect exponential growth in data services in this market, where we will continue to invest in expansion of Sudan’s network.

Regarding digital developments, the Zain Digital Frontier and In-novation (ZDFI) team was active with more than 400 new innovative ideas and opportunities being examined in 2016, and the most appealing of them either implemented by Zain across its operations or are in the final stages of negotiation.

Successful deals included a number of key strategic investments set to help us maximize the enormous appetite for digital content, and our recently announced joint venture to bring iflix to the region reflects this.

We extended our foray in venture capital firms by investing in the US based Colle Capital Partners, a global, opportunistic, early stage technology venture fund based in New York, with a presence in San Francisco. Colle Capital Partners has a diversified technology focus, extending Zain’s corporate venturing to the US and complementing established relationships through our investments in MEVP, EarlyBird and Wamda.

Looking ahead, it is safe to say we shall continue to focus on in-novation and customer experience. The ability to deliver what the customer wants in order to stay relevant is critical. Non-voice and digital services are the drivers of the modern mobile communica-tions industry and we expect this to remain the case going forward. Thus, we believe it is vital to continue to transform Zain into a digital services provider in order to align it with where we believe the value is migrating to in our industry.

It is our intention to remain relevant and value creating to the lives of the people around us.

Scott Gegenheimer, CEO of Zain Group, says the company being from the region makes it totally committed to its upliftment and development

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Bader Al Kharafi, Zain Group Vice Chairman commented, “The establishment of the joint venture iflix Arabia instantly creates enor-mous value for both Zain and iflix stakehold-ers, given the synergies created and the new revenue streams that will be generated by the expected take-up of this appeal-ing internet TV service by the public and Zain customers. This is a monumental step forward for Zain in our journey to become the premier digital lifestyle provider in the MENA region.”

Scott Gegenheimer, Group CEO of Zain Group said, “Iflix has done an exceptional job in spearheading the entertainment revolu-tion in Asia and truly has an industry leading product. What distinguishes iflix is its constant innovation and commitment to offering its customers an exceptional and entertaining digital experience, which is at the heart of what Zain stands for.”

iflix co-founder and Group CEO, Mark Britt said, “Zain is a true pioneer in innovation with a deep understanding of the culture and evo-lution of digital businesses. This collaboration represents an exciting step in iflix’s growth story as we launch in the MENA region with a partner who shares our vision and commit-ment to deliver an outstanding service.”

John-Paul McKerlie, CEO of iflix Arabia added, “The combination of Zain and iflix has empowered both businesses with the capacity to offer customers the most incredible content services. A great mix of local and international catalogs will reach audiences using Zain’s leading networks, guaranteeing the best speeds for streaming and user experience, bringing even more content to customers and enhancing their viewing experience.”

iflix’s propriety compression and adaptive bit rate technology further ensures that users have a great viewing experience, by enabling the service to stream smoothly on low inter-net speeds.

More entertainment than one could possibly imagine

Zain Group kicked off 2017 by announcing the establishment of an exciting JV with iflix, the world’s leading Internet TV service for emerging markets

The joint venture brings iflix’s world-class service to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with the joint venture company – iflix Arabia - being headquartered in Dubai and trading commercially as iflix. The joint venture company will add Zain’s territories of operation to iflix’s global footprint, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, with the potential to further extend into additional regional markets.

The commercial launch of iflix’s Internet TV service across the MENA region is planned for the second quarter of 2017, at which time iflix Arabia will offer consumers across the region and Zain mobile customers its extensive range of thousands of TV shows, movies and more with Arabic and English subtitles, including many exclusives and award winning content. In addition to having the best of Hollywood, Bollywood, regional and local programs, as well as over 2,000 episodes of children’s content. Additionally, iflix will offer an extensive collection of highly acclaimed Arabic shows and movies with the company planning to introduce exclusive Arabic content series.

Having first launched in May 2015, iflix quickly established its dominance in Asia, rolling out its service to nine markets in less than two years, acquiring over four million members over the period. With Zain’s 47 million customers, the joint venture will benefit from and leverage the mobile operator’s established market leader-ship in conjunction with learnings iflix acquired in consolidating its dominance throughout Asia. iflix Arabia will capitalize on the MENA region’s large youth population, rapidly expanding internet and smartphone penetration, and huge appetite for digital content and entertainment.

Bader Al Kharafi, Zain Group Vice Chairman, and Patrick Grove, iflix co-founder and Chairman, at the unveiling of iflix Arabia in Kuwait on February 15

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Zain in motion – a look back at the highlights over the last 12 months

December 2016 Strategic investment in Colle Capital Partners venture fund

Extending Zain’s corporate venturing to the US and complementing established relation-ships in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, Zain made a strategic investment in Colle Capital Partners, (www.collecapital.com) a global, opportunistic, early stage technology venture fund based in New York, with a pres-ence in San Francisco.

Colle Capital Partners has a diversified technology focus with an emphasis on data in the following sectors: Energy, Media, Telecommunications, Health IT, Security, and Software Development. The fund manag-ers have access to unique, high quality investment opportunities and the fund was oversubscribed.

December 2016 Moving Forward: Sixth annual Zain Technology Conference Zain’s sixth annual Zain Technology Conference (ZTC) in Amman, Jordan was a great success.

Held under the patronage of the PM of Jordan, Dr. Hani al-Mulki, the conference was inaugurated by the Minister of ICT, and of Public Sector Development, Mrs. Majd Shweikeh. The theme of ZTC 2016 was ‘Moving Forward’, and focused on Zain’s strat-egy execution as it continues to transform into a digital lifestyle provider of the highest calibre, investing extensively in network and technology upgrades to ensure its individual and enterprise customers receive the best digital mobile experience.

The three-day event saw the attendance of over 700 telecom professionals, including representatives from 60 of the world’s leading technology solution providers. Also in attendance was

the President of the Jordan Telecommunica-tions Regulatory Commission, Dr. Ghazi Jbour; Zain Group CEO, Scott Gegenheimer; Zain Jordan CEO, Ahmad Al Hanandeh; and Zain Group CTO, Hisham Allam.

November 2016Convergent billing breakthrough in Iraq

Zain and Huawei announced the launch of the first fully convergent billing system in Iraq. Zain successfully commissioned and installed a state-of-the-art converged billing and charging platform that replaces legacy infrastructure with a modern, unified charging, billing and CRM solution. This system is capable of effectively han-dling all services and customer types, bringing a fluidity to services including voice and data, billing options, and customer segment offerings. The time-to-market from concept to product launch has also been dramatically reduced.

Elfatih Erwa, MD of Zain Sudan and Ahmad Al Hanandeh, Zain Jordan CEO jointly present ICT Minister HE Majd Shweikeh (center) a gift honoring her presence

The Investor Relations mobile app is optimized for Apple iOS and Android devices

February 2017 Investor Relations goes digital

We launched our new mobile app “Zain Group Investor Relations” and updated our Investor Relations (IR) portal on www.zain.com. These digital IR tools, relate to our pri-mary listing on the Kuwait Stock Exchange, and are aimed at enhancing Zain’s com-

munication with its stakeholders. This is achieved by increasing transparency to provide investors and analysts with instant access to the most up-to-date and relevant infor-mation to keep them abreast of relevant news. The mobile app is optimized for Apple iOS and Android devices.

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ADVERTORIAL

Unshakeable commitmentThe partnership between Zain Group and Huawei continues to endure, and as part of its commitment to drive ICT development in the next decade, for example, Huawei exhibited its latest products and solutions during its participation at the Zain Technology Conference (ZTC) 2016 in Amman, Jordan

Under the theme ‘ROADS to your digital world’, Huawei presented its latest technologies and advanced solu-tions that will enable Middle East’s ICT industry to rethink business, redefine network and remodel operation. Aside from showcasing innovative SDN solutions, Huawei also displayed OmniChannel, a cross-channel business model that companies use to improve customer experience; and Much TV, a video ecosystem that enables streaming of video content through Huawei’s video cloud.

In Sudan, Zain and Huawei signed a five-year managed services agreement to streamline the mobile operation, which will improve Zain Sudan’s profitability. This will be achieved through reducing the carrier’s overheads by pro-viding advanced management tool and network services that enable the telecom leader to focus on building its business.

Across the region, Zain and Huawei have been strength-ening their strategic partnership across various technology initiatives to provide Zain customers with superior communications experiences. Earlier this year, the two companies signed a strategic agreement to

enhance the efficiency of the telco’s networks through SDN solutions by the year 2020. The network upgrade is projected to increase efficiency significantly across its existing networks in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. With SDN and NFV technologies at the heart of Zain Group’s infrastructure; customers will be able to order or change a service from the comfort of their home or office, while experiencing a high level of service and quality.

In Saudi Arabia, Zain and Huawei Tech Invest-ment Saudi Arabia recently announced signing a five-year managed services agreement, which will enable the telco to enhance its customer experience. Under the agreement, Huawei will partner with German IT consulting firm P3 Communications to improve Zain Saudi Arabia’s existing network, using advanced technologies and solutions to improve data services in the busiest customer areas of the Kingdom’s capital Riyadh.

Zain and Huawei signed five-year managed services agreement to streamline Zain Sudan and Zain Saudi Arabia’s operations

The two companies entered a strategic agreement to enhance the efficiency of Zain’s networks by 2020 in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan through SDN solutions

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November 2016Digital Innovation Forum in Kuwait Zain’s Digital Innovation Forum took place in Kuwait, drawing participants from across Zain Group’s operational companies, and for the first time in its four-year history, including colleagues from INWI, Zain’s affili-ate company in Morocco.

The overriding aim of the Forum was for individual Zain operating companies to be able to share their strategies, experiences, best practices, and challenges with one another and maintain the culture of im-provement and forward momentum within the organization. Discussions at the event revolved around relevant industry trends including developments with over-the-top (OTT) players, e-commerce, digital content, e-health, the need for all operations to modify and transform their operating structures, and the requirement to attract and retain talent who have the capability to inject new ideas into the business.

Zain’s Digital Innovation Forum took place in Kuwait, and drew participants from across Zain Group’s operational companies, including from INWI

October 2016 MIT Enterprise Forum Innovate for Refugees competition winners

Under the patronage of HM Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, MIT Enterprise Forum (MIT EF) Pan Arab, in partnership with Zain Group and MBC Hope, announced the seven winners of the In-novate for Refugees competition at an award ceremony that took place at the King Hussein Business Park Main Theatre in Amman, Jordan.

The competition invited entrepreneurs and refugees from around the world to come up with tech-driven, innovative solutions to help address the global refugee crisis. Over 1,600 applications were received, with 21 finalists shortlisted to the final round.

September 2016 “ZainCash” service to boost e-commerce with Iraq’s first online payment solution

Iraq Wallet, the first licensed mobile com-merce company in Iraq, expanded its ZainCash service by introducing an online payment solution, ‘Pay with ZainCash’. Available to Zain Iraq mobile customers, it is the first of its kind in Iraq. Iraq Wallet’s ‘Pay with ZainCash’ is expected to have a major impact on expanding e-commerce nation-wide supporting the creation of an enabling environment for entrepreneurs to operate, while stimulating Iraq’s digital economy and kick-starting the adoption of e-commerce.

‘Pay with ZainCash’ allows sellers to accept online payments through their websites and mobile applications in a simple, fast, and se-cure manner, while also enabling customers to purchase products and services online.


The competition invited entrepreneurs and refugees from around the world to come up with tech-driven, innovative solutions

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September 2016Partnering Facebook and UNHCR to provide free Wi-Fi for refugees in Jordan

At the UN Broadband Commis-sion for Sustainable Develop-ment meeting in New York held in September 2016, Zain Group announced a collaboration with the United Nations High Commis-sioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Facebook to provide free, open and high-speed Wi-Fi internet connectivity to refugees in the Kingdom of Jordan for five years. This life-empowering service is be-ing provided to refugees and sur-rounding local communities in key areas identified by the UNHCR, and forms part of its Connectivity for Refugees initiative.

The connectivity project backed by Zain Group, UNHCR and Facebook offers unlimited, 24/7 outdoor and indoor Wi-Fi access points through Zain Jordan’s high-speed 4G mobile network, initially in four primary locations across the Kingdom.

The connectivity project backed by Zain Group, UNHCR and Facebook offers unlimited, 24/7 outdoor and indoor Wi-Fi access points

May 2016Booking.com reward program launchedZain entered a ground-breaking agreement with Booking.com to offer Zain customers additional complimentary mobile services as a reward for accessing the hotel service via a dedicated URL. Booking.com is one of the most successful hotel reservation booking services online, and the service is currently available to Zain customers in Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon.

Zain customers who book a hotel stay through booking.zain.com gain exclusive benefits based on the value of their booking. By inserting their phone number, each time they complete a booking on the site and fulfil the reservation, they are rewarded with the allocation of additional mobile data or voice benefits that are credited to either their prepaid or post-paid line.

April 2016 MITEF Arab Startup Competition identifies budding entrepreneurs

In the ninth edition of the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition in 2016 that Zain sponsors, an outstanding 5,967 individual and team applications from 21 Arab countries were received, up from 4,275 in 2015, and representing a record participation of over 16,500 entrepreneurs up from 12,000 in 2015. The nine winning teams across three tracks - Ideas, Startups, and Social Entrepreneurship - hailed from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.

The US$50,000 top prize for the best start up track was awarded to Kuwait’s Ghinwa, who are building a mobile application that can be used by users to perform Karaoke where songs are licensed from the copyright owners to ensure legality, allowing users to share and promote their talents across dif-ferent social media platforms.

Several high-profile entrepreneurs, investors and government officials from Saudi Arabia, the region and beyond shared insight dur-ing the event and judged the competition.

Ghinwa from Kuwait was awarded the cash prize by Mrs. Eaman Al Roudhan, CEO of Zain Kuwait

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February 2016 Zain Sudan debuts 4G LTE, plac-ing Sudan on the global map of modern telecommunications Zain Sudan officially launched high-speed 4G LTE earlier in 2016, marking the first time the mobile broadband technology has been available in the country and the sixth Zain operation to do so.

In the first stage 4G coverage was extended to the capital Khartoum; Medani; Port Sudan and El Obeid with these central and populat-ed areas being launched in cooperation with leading global technology solutions provider Ericsson. 4G services were later extended to other regional centers across the country gradually with the additional cooperation of Huawei, also a preeminent global technol-ogy solutions provider. By the end of 2016, over 25 populated cities had 4G coverage. The introduction of 4G places Sudan at the forefront of countries providing mobile data services on the continent, and features Su-dan in an advanced position technologically.


March 2016 Zain Iraq’s “Hassa Eliya” focuses on youth development

Zain Iraq launched a multi-faceted program dubbed “Hassa Eliya,” (Now for Me), which is focused on inspiring and empowering young Iraqi talent by encouraging them to explore their potential and skills, and equipping them with the necessary tools to help achieve their goals. The program aims to recognize and showcase Iraqi youth achievements to the world.

The program is based on the use of many innovative methods to stimulate and develop the relationship between Zain Iraq and the youth in the country, and among many initiatives, a Facebook page that serves as a platform for young Iraqis to voice their ambitions was launched (receiving five million views in just 72 hours). The Facebook page provides the youth with the opportunity to submit their ideas, projects and dreams and Zain Iraq will select a number of those suggestions and support their future development.

“Hassa Eliya” also incorporated a number of youth-focused activi-ties including a motivational media campaign including a compel-ling television commercial with plans to launch a career program on YouTube, as well as a community focused health, sports and innovation program.

The program was highly recognized across the region winning a prestigious award at the annual CommsMEA awards.

Innovation Center is a beacon of light The Zain Innovation Campus (ZINC) in Jordan has been a great success story for the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the kingdom having, with the campus engaging with 70 stra-tegic partners and having held over 300 events that attracted 25,000 participants and visitors since inception in November 2014. Over the years, notable dignitaries that have visited ZINC include Their Majesties King Abdullah II and Queen Rania who inaugurated ZINC, HRH The Prince of Wales - Prince Charles, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. ZINC has also hosted numerous activities for Zain, including the company’s Group-wide Digital Innovation Forum.

Hassa Eliya,” (Now for Me) is an initiative in Iraq focused on inspiring and empowering young talent in the country

ZINC has engaged with 70 strategic partners and held over 300 events attracting 25,000+ participants and visitors since inception in November 2014

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ADVERTORIAL

Zain Saudi and Nokia March on Toward 5GNokia and Zain Saudi Arabia have successfully trialled advanced 4.5G features including uplink carrier aggregation, 4X4 MIMO, downlink 256 QAM as well as uplink 64 QAM, achieving higher throughput. The trial, which took place in Jeddah, will help Zain Saudi Arabia improve the mobile broadband experience for its customers, and evolve toward the next generation technologies of 4.5G Pro, 4.9G and eventually 5G

Advanced 4.5G features such as multi-band carrier aggregation, higher order modulation and higher MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) allow operators to increase network capacity and speed with existing radio network resources and available spectrum bands. Combining the various advanced features of 4.5G is a cost-efficient means to evolve networks on the path toward 4.5G Pro, 4.9G, and 5G.

Eng. Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, Chief Technology Officer, Zain Saudi Arabia, said, “With the exponential growth in the demand for ultra-high-speed mobile broadband services in the Saudi market, we continue to invest in our network and adopt the latest technologies available. With this successful trial with our partner Nokia, we are con-fident that our network will evolve smoothly toward 4.5G Pro, 4.9G and 5G. This joint trial reiterates our commitment to constantly upgrade our networks in order to play our role in the digital transformation of the Saudi economy, and provide world-class customer experience.”

Ali Al Jitawi, head of the Zain Saudi Arabia Customer Team at Nokia, said, “Due to the rapidly growing use of data-hungry applica-tions by smartphone users in Saudi Arabia, future networks will require a very high network capacity and throughput to deliver gigabytes of data. With our future-proof technologies, we are committed to helping leading operators like Zain Saudi Arabia evolve their network to ad-dress this with their existing network resources with simple software upgrades.”

Overview of the Nokia solutions used for the trial • Nokia’s Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station, a Single RAN (radio access network) Advanced platform, provided high-capacity throughput

• Uplink carrier aggregation software aggre-gated 1800 and 2100 MHz bands, creating larger, virtual carrier bandwidths and boosting the network capacity and uplink speeds of up to 43 Mbps

• 4X4 MIMO: Four antennas both on the base stations and mobile devices improved the network performance by 88% to reach the download speed of up to 134 Mbps per 10 MHz carrier

• Downlink 256 QAM: This higher order modu-lation increased the downlink speed by 36% per carrier to reach speeds of up to 98 Mbps

• Uplink 64 QAM: It improved the spectral ef-ficiency and the uplink speed by 32% to reach speeds of up to 32 Mbps per carrier

• Network implementation and multi-layer optimisation services to plan and optimise 2x CA for maximum data throughput

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New brand, new horizons

At Mobile World Congress 2017, neXgen announces its change of brand to NXN, and unveiles its full turnkey smart city solution

NeXgen, the thought leader in smart cities and next generation technology innovation, and in which Zain Group has a stakeholding, is rebrand-ing to NXN and launching a Smart City man-aged services portfolio to become the smart city service provider offering a full turnkey solution.

The new brand comes on the heels of the new partnership in launching the Zain-NXN service portfolio for smart cities.

NXN defines its offering as an ability to orchestrate the transformation of cities into smart, connected environments through its unique combination of technology, expertise and approach. Services go beyond digital transformation consulting into the building and management of smart city services in vari-ous areas such as smart energy, smart security, and smart utilities.

The NXN mission is to consult, build, and manage the smart and digital transformation of cities and districts. These become world-class, effective and efficient living spaces for society to benefit from and enjoy.

NXN has already delivered cloud-based of-ferings in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE

to deliver managed smart city and smart district services for govern-ments and real estate developers.

Ghazi Atallah, Managing Director of NXN commented, “The new brand represents a new era for us. In collaboration with Zain, we have a real opportunity to take the smart city concept to the next level. Our new brand reflects this expansion of our remit and encapsulates our vision for the future of smart cities.”

NXN values extend to the following:Extraordinary Ideas We value innovative, visionary perspectives on the future and trans-formational thinking

Beautiful simplicity We strive for this in everything that we do, because we operate in a highly complex and ever-changing environment

People Who Make a Difference We value people with the drive and passion to make a positive impact on our business and our clients

The NXN technology platform is built in cooperation with leading technology companies including EMC Dell, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, SAP and others. The pieces of technology have been architecturally orchestrated and integrated together in an innovative way, allowing NXN to provide cities with dashboards and data analytics that add value and are much needed in the decision-making process.

The new brand identity is in line with NXN’s inspiration from the cities it transforms. Considering the heart of any city exposes various network grids; at the intersection of which slices of life in a city occur. These grids and intersecting slices constitute the visual language of the NXN logo and new brand identity.

Left to right – Scott Gegenheimer, Zain Group CEO; Ghazi Atallah, Managing Director of NXN; and Emre Gurkan, Zain Group Chief Strategy & Business Development Officer, upon announcing the strategic investment in 2016

Zain Group selected as a preferred partner to the Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Program

Zain Group, through its fully owned global services subsidiary, Mada Communications, was granted Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Program status. This permits Zain to deliver innovative Microsoft software and cloud expe-riences to enterprises across its expansive IP/MPLS network. Microsoft’s Azure ExpressRoute allows corporates to create private connections between Azure data centers and infrastructure on-premises or in a colocation environment. As part of the agreement, Zain Group will also be able to bring customers onto Microsoft Azure through its Zain Global Network, providing them with seamless, secure and reliable dedi-cated private network connectivity.

Charles Nahas, General Manager, Microsoft Kuwait, and Henri Kassab, Managing Director, International, Wholesale & Roaming at Zain Group

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of its expertise, while learning from others so that together all parties can collaborate and build better, faster, more efficient systems.

In a separate development, but which highlights Zain Group’s innovation prowess in a different guise, its Zain Cash mobile app in Iraq received more than 100,000 users in the first few weeks of launch. The initiative forms part of Zain Group’s activities with FOO, the impressive mobile apps developer in which it made a strategic investment, announced at Mobile World Congress in 2016.

FOO has been heavily involved with different mobile money and wallet projects across Zain operations and has helped launch the new Zain Group Code of Conduct portal and Zain Bahrain Self-Care mobile application. FOO is also finalizing the Zain Kuwait Self-Care mobile application.

With an additional strong focus on Fintech and the financial services sector, FOO has landed major projects in these areas, extending to mobile banking omni-channel platform rollouts, and mobile payments proj-ects. It launched the first Host Card Emula-tion (HCE) payment mobile application with VISA in the region and is also undertaking several projects with MasterCard across the Middle East and Africa.

Innovation remains at the heart of FOO’s outlook, with an R&D department set to be launched with a focus on emerging tech-nologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain.

With Zain’s support, FOO has grown its number of employees by 50% and ex-panded its presence into two more coun-tries. FOO is becoming a major force in the mobile solutions arena earning and will be focusing on opportunities in Telecom, Government and FinTech digital innovation for the coming years.

Powered by the desire to leverage technology

Zain’s approach to technology innovation includes valuable collaborations, most recently with Facebook-led Telecom Infra Project, and FOO

Leveraging technology in order to drive efficiencies is a central theme of Zain Group strategy, and that has again been high-lighted by the announcement that it has joined the Telecom Infra Project, (TIP), an initiative co-founded by Facebook, Intel, Nokia, SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and others in 2016.

The primary aim of TIP is to bring mobile operators, infrastructure providers, system integrators, and other technology companies together to collaborate on the development of new technologies and reimagine traditional approaches to building and deploy-ing telecom network infrastructure. Operators and the broader telecom industry need to collaborate, be more flexible, innovative and efficient, and TIP looks to help achieve this goal.

As a pioneer in telecommunications in the Middle East and Africa, Zain brings vast expertise and resources to the initiative as it will utilize its regional footprint and experience in network deploy-ments across challenging territories to support TIP.

TIP is exploring new approaches and technologies across initial fo-cus areas of access, backhaul, core and management. The projects within these areas utilize the unique engineering and operational expertise of each member, focusing on developing new technolo-gies and exploring new approaches to deployment in both devel-oped and emerging markets. Each member contributes to the area

With Zain’s support, FOO has grown its number of employees by 50% and expanded its presence into two more countries

16

Protecting those who can’t protect themselves

Zain Group is using its participation in Mobile World Congress 2017 to publicize the publication of its annual thought leadership report, this year entitled, ‘Leveraging Technology to Protect the Rights of Children’

The report outlines the importance of utiliz-ing technology to ensure that mechanisms are put in place to protect children from all forms of abuse. Millions of young people around the world today suffer from various forms of child abuse and Zain Group has long-since been a firm proponent of pro-tecting the rights of children in the countries in which it operates and across the region.

Rapid advances in Information and Com-munication Technology (ICT) have brought forward rapid development and oppor-tunities for children – for example, ready access to information and the ability to seek support when in need, including through child helplines. However, ICT can also widen the risk surface for abuse. The emergence of cyber-bullying, inappropriate online content and predatory behavior towards children are directly linked to the global spread of ICT.

Given this context, Zain’s latest report examines the role and potential for technology to address child abuse by promoting opportunities and mitigating risks. Given that ICT is a key enabler of socio-economic development on a universal level, it is impor-tant that stakeholders work together to ensure that the dangers associated with it are addressed without eliminating the inherent benefits that it offers humanity.

Commenting on the publication of the company’s latest report, Zain Group CEO, Scott Gegenheimer commented, “The mobile industry with its fast-paced evolution has tremendous potential to raise awareness and provide radically beneficial solutions that could address the plight of the most vulnerable segments of soci-ety, particularly children. Zain is committed to the safety and well-being of the communities it serves and we hope that through this report our efforts to raise awareness and offer solutions are also replicated and championed by our industry peers and beyond.”

On her part, Jennifer Suleiman, Zain Group’s Head of Corporate Sustainability said, “We operate on the doorstep of a series of ongoing conflicts, primarily in Syria and Iraq, which have resulted in arguably the worst humanitarian crises of modern times and the most widespread case of human displacement since WWII. The circumstances place the children of the region in far greater risk of facing abuse, and we feel compelled to raise attention to these cir-cumstances, while also actively addressing them in our own right.”

Natasha Jackson, Head of Public Policy and Consumer Affairs, GSMA said, “We would like to congratulate Zain on the work they are doing to harness the power of mobile to help protect vulnerable children, whilst actively combatting the misuse of their services by those who seek to sexually exploit children.”

Magdalena Aguilar, Head of Programme Development at Child Helpline International said, “At Child Helpline International we are happy that Zain Group sees child helplines as an essential tool for child online protection. We join this call for action and urge everybody to support us in our fight to protect children when they are at their most vulnerable.”

Dr. Joanna Rubinstein, President & CEO, World Childhood Foundation USA said, “As a partner in child protection, World Childhood Foundation USA is proud of the important work and leadership of Zain to achieve one of the critical SDGs’ targets, 16.2: ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of vio-lence and torture against children by 2030.”Zain’s latest thought leadership report amplifies the

company’s well known fight to stop abuse of vulnerable sections of society such as children Zain’s thought leadership report, ‘Leveraging Technology to Protect the Rights of

Children’ can be downloaded from www.zain.com

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