Zain Group joins Hedera Governing Council to create safer, fairer, more secure internet
Kharafi: Membership provides Zain exposure to cutting-edge, secure technologies
KUWAIT: Zain Group [Kuwait Boursa, stock ticker: ZAIN], a leading mobile telecom innovator serving 49.5 million customers in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa today announces it is joining the highly innovative Hedera Governing Council.
Zain is the first company from the Middle East region to participate on the Council, joining a list of prestigious global innovators including Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Swisscom Blockchain, Tata Communications, University College London, and Wipro.
Hedera Hashgraph provides a next-generation form of distributed consensus that is faster, fairer and more secure than traditional blockchains. It offers a new way for people or organizations who do not know or trust each other to securely collaborate and transact online without the need for a trusted intermediary. Through its participation on the Hedera Council, Zain Group will gain extensive early insights into the trends and applications in the distributed ledger technology (DLT) space and will be able to assess opportunities to develop services within its own field of operation.
Hedera’s vision is to create a safer, fairer, more secure internet - one in which online communities can collectively create and evolve shared worlds in cyberspace, and on which developers can build trusted applications that enable people to play games and work together. End-users will also be empowered to buy and sell goods and services safely and securely, without entrusting a central organization with their data and privacy.
As a leading regional digital lifestyle operator, Zain consistently looks to ways technology can provide new solutions to its individual and business customers while also improving its own operating efficiency. Furthermore, the Hedera Hashgraph patented technology platform addresses the universally important issue of the environment as its power usage is super-efficient, utilizing a fraction of the electricity that blockchain platforms use. This is in line with Zain Group’s membership of and commitment to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which provides a reporting framework and guidance to address climate change.
Zain Vice-Chairman and Group CEO, Bader AlKharafi commented, “We feel a sense of purpose in joining the Hedera Governing Council, which has numerous blue chip, innovation-driven organizations all interested in driving the development of blockchains and the wider DLT space, which we have already noted has phenomenal potential. Council membership provides Zain first-hand exposure to cutting-edge and secure technologies that drive innovation, e-commerce and B2B across the region.”
Kharafi continued, “From our own perspective, the growing list of new services and applications we have and continue to develop in areas such as the Group API platform; mobile money and fintech; e-health; drones; the Internet of Things; and 5G all lend themselves to further enhancement through blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies. Our participation in the Council also speaks to another pillar of Zain’s corporate strategy, which is to collaborate with leading industry players to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and thereby improve the products and services we can deliver to our customers.”
Hedera aims to realize its vision to create a safer, fairer, more secure internet through a focus on addressing four fundamental challenges to the adoption of public DLT - technology, security, stability, and governance. For the vision to deliver impactful results, the network needs to be governed by representatives from a broad range of market sectors and geographies, each with worldclass expertise in their respective industries.
Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera commented, “We are delighted to have Zain Group join the
Council, given the company’s sound track record of innovation, and professionalism in the development and delivery of cutting-edge mobile services and applications. We believe the Council will be enriched greatly by this first organization to join us from the Middle East region, given Zain Group’s eight country footprint. We hope Zain will take full advantage of the opportunity to immerse itself in hashgraph and distributed ledger technologies and gain first-hand knowledge of new technologies and use cases developed on the Hedera network.”
The Hedera Governing Council’s members contribute technical expertise to manage the technical roadmap, business expertise to advise on business operations, and legal expertise to help navigate the evolving regulatory environment.