NEM Delegate Sherwin Guhit; Photo taken by NEM Delegate Emmanuel Rinon

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Blockchain. A new word for most of the people residing in the region but now becoming an integral part of Dubai as this technology paves the way for making Dubai a smart city — to be paperless by 2020 fully running on Blockchain Technology.

The GCC Blockchain Conference was launched in the aim to assess the value of blockchain for enterprises. It was a two day event from November 22 until 23, 2017 and was held at the Dusit Thani Hotel.

Photo taken by NEM Delegate Emmanuel Rinon

The event was attended by people from various industries eager to know how blockchain can be of value for their enterprises. The event gave way for key speakers as well as panel discussion which include Mr. Waleed Saeed Al Dhuhoori, Head of Corporate Applications and the Deputy in Smart Government Committee at Dubai Health Authority.

Mr. Waleed Saeed Al Dhuhoori (right)

In his speech, he tells about the ongoing initiative of Dubai Health Authority on adopting blockchain in the healthcare sector. Using private and public blockchains, soon people can get access to their medical records and can be able to get second diagnostics opinion from other hospital without printing a single piece of paper. Validation of prescribed medicines can also be done using blockchain and the list of possibilities goes on.

Dr. Sohail Munir

The event also had Dr. Sohail Munir, Director for Smart City Enablement Services at Smart Dubai Government. Dr. Sohail is one of the key speakers of the event and is leading multiple emerging technologies and smart government transformation initiatives. He specialises in Enterprise Architecture for large and complex ICT systems and his current R&D interests are in the space of Digital Government transformation, Blockchain, Digital ID and Digital Payments. At Smart Dubai Government he is leading portfolios for Blockchain, Paperless and Cashless city.

NEM delegate Sherwin Guhit presenting NEM Blockchain to Dr. Sohail Munir

NEM was able to meet Dr. Sohail during the conference. During the meeting, NEM delegates highlighted that the Dubai government should build their applications and run their systems in a very secured blockchain with zero downtime. Dr. Sohail in his statement said that their team initially scouted for blockchains meeting such requirements and already came across the NEM blockchain. Currently, the Dubai government is not yet utilizing NEM as a blockchain. Having known this, NEM delegates explained to Dr. Sohail the

advantage of NEM’s approach which is an Offchain solution rather than the conventional onchain which other blockchains are utilizing. This feature can stop the application from running to fix any bugs without stoping the blockchain itself. This was made possible with the use of NEM’s API (Application Programme Interface). A meeting between NEM and Smart City leaders and developers shall be scheduled after the GCC Blockchain Conference to further discuss the possibility of Dubai government utilizing NEM as a blockchain solution.

Cybertrust CEO and Founder Evgeny Xata (Left) with NEM Foundation Council Member Nelson Valero (Right)

One of the event sponsor is Cybertrust, a company that is institutionalising crypto markets by securitizing digital assets to build regulated, compliant financial instruments. Cybertrust is keen to use NEM Blockchain in their future projects in particular their expansion in the middle east. Cybertrust CEO, Evgeny Xata also discussed with NEM Foundation Council Member Nelson Valero regarding contacts with NEM community especially in the countries of their operations. Indeed, the future is bright for both parties.

From Left: Emmanuel Rinon (NEM Delegate), Evgeny Xata (CEO, Cybertrust), Sherwin Guhit (NEM Delegate)

The conference was packed with speakers, various topics were discussed like the possiblities for Blockchain within the Financial Services, the impact of blockchain on streaming media, IoT (Internet of Things), Supply chain, Identity over Blockchain, Mobile Money Remittance System as well as the future of ICO’s and the rise of the token economy.

The future is bright for the NEM Foundation in the Middle East region as the government and private companies is now starting to see the advantages of NEM blockchain in terms of speed, scalability, and security as NEM has never been hacked.

You can reach the author by writing to sherwinguhit@nemuae.io or by Telegram @sherwinguhit

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