KSA based SmartChain Partners with UAE Emircom on Blockchain solutions

As Blockchain technology awareness increases in the MENA region and as more governments and private sector industries start carrying out proof of concepts and projects that include blockchain in its mix, companies in the technology sector are endeavoring to partner and increase their blockchain capabilities both in-house and through partnerships with Blockchain solution providers.

UNLOCK recently met and interviewed Mr. Waqas Nakhwa, Founder Chief Executive Officer of SmartChain, and KartBlock its subsidiary, Mohammad Shakeer, General Manager KSA, Emircom and Mr. Yusaf Ali, General Financial Manager, UAE ,CFO of KSA Emircom on the recent partnership for the deployment of blockchain solutions in UAE, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

For those who might know Emircom, it is one of the leading ICT solution providers and integrators in the GCC with over 500 employees in the MENA region. It is a well-established Cisco partner and an oracle Gold partner. In addition it has carried out many governmental and private sector projects since its inception in 1984. It is one of the biggest service providers for telecom operators such as Mobily and Etisalat and seeks to differentiate its offering by adding Blockchain solutions to the mix.

On the other hand Smart Chain and its subsidiary KartBlock is a technology solutions development company that is focused on Enterprise grade technology solutions using the advanced technology platforms like Blockchain, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and IOT. KartBlock has proprietor blockchain solution in the areas of Education, Supply Chain, Human Resources and Health Care and fully functional fiat and crypto Digital Wallet.

SmartChain based in KSA announced its partnership with Emircom to jointly develop and deploy blockchain solutions in the MENA region. The aim is to create adoption of Blockchain technology in the government and SME sector in various industries.

According to Mr. Waqas Nakhwa, “We are proud to partner with Emircom one of the leading ICT providers in the region to workhand in hand on the adoption of Blockchain. We utilize blockchain platforms such as Hyperledger Fabric, Ethereum, and Stellar and other platforms. In addition we have received Shariaa Compliant Certification from Malaysian government allowing us to implement tokenization projects and other solutions in the region.”

Mr. Yusaf Ali, General Financial Manager, UAE and CFO of KSA at Emircom, “We are working on implementing a POC “Proof Of Concept” project in KSA within the health care sector for outpatient services. We are also working with Aqarchain, a subsidiary of SmartChain on a real-estate tokenization project in KSA.”

According to Mr. Mohammed Shakeer, “We are witnessing an increased transition into the utilization of Blockchain as a service on cloud platforms such as Oracle and others and this will grow in the future and given our strong partnerships, blockchain will be integrated into some of our product offerings.” He adds, “We are working for example with Bahrain Central Bank on a tokenization project, a data governance project in Abu Dhabi. Even in Oman we are in talks with a large Petrochemical entity for tokenization of their digital payment solution.”

Both Smartchain and Emircom believe that by working together both companies can provide integrated solutions in Blockchain, AI, IOT and other emerging technologies. According to Yusaf Ali, “We are expanding our offering rapidly because in next five year there will be multi-dimensional use cases coming out of blockchain. In addition to our partnership with SmartChain we are also building our internal blockchain expert team.”