years: 2025

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 21 November, 2025 — As the city embraces the Dubai Fitness Challenge, Yango Group, a UAE-based technology company, is showcasing how technology, physical activity and mindfulness can come together to support well-being, balance, and connection. Yango Yasmina, the bilingual AI assistant, together with a professional instructor will lead a unique yoga and meditation session at the Dubai Future Foundation’s “Our Future(s)” experience.

The session will take place on Wednesday, November 26, from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM at Kite Beach (Our Future(s) location near Feels Café. Participants will experience a 40-minute yoga flow followed by a 15-minute meditation, guided jointly by a professional instructor and Yasmina.

Through ambient soundscapes and guided meditations in English and Arabic, Yasmina will help create a focused and calming atmosphere. The AI will interact with participants conversationally, switching seamlessly between languages to co-lead the instructor and deepen the immersive experience.

“This session reflects how we at Yango Group see the future of technology — not as something separate or complex, but as human, intuitive, and woven into everyday life. AI is already here as a helpful tool that supports well-being, simplifies routines, and creates more mindful moments at home, daily,” said Rami Abu Arja, Senior Innovation Marketing Manager at Yasmina, Yango Group Middle East. “By partnering with the Dubai Future Foundation on this yoga experience, we’re showing how AI can enrich real-world experiences.”

Attendees will also have a chance to participate in a live giveaway at the end of the session. The AI assistant will randomly select several winners, each of whom will receive a Yango AI Speaker to continue their wellness journey at home.

Yasmina can help users maintain daily wellness routines — from playing energizing workout playlists and offering healthy lifestyle tips to providing positive affirmations.

To experience AI-powered well-being firsthand, register for the yoga and meditation session by the link. Please note that the session is limited to a set number of participants — registration will close once capacity is reached.

Yasmina AI speakers, including Yasmina Lite, Mini, Midi, and Max, are available for purchase on Amazon.ae and through leading retailers across the UAE.

“Our Future(s)” is a beachside experience that reimagines how technology, sport, and wellbeing intersect. Apart from the yoga and meditation experience with Yasmina, visitors can also shoot hoops against a robotic arm that adapts in real time. A live screen tracks each player’s health vitals, while a hydration station fuels the action and a research-driven activation will leave you questioning the future of health and wellness. This experience is part of Dubai Future Foundation’s Our Future(s) series, exploring how foresight can drive vital elements in our daily lives.

RIYADH – 13th November 2025 – PlanRadar, the leading platform for digital documentation, communication, and reporting in construction and real estate projects, is proud to announce its participation at Cityscape Global 2025, taking place in Riyadh from 17–20 November 2025. Visitors can connect with PlanRadar at Stand H4 – F90, where the team will be demonstrating the latest platform features designed to simplify project management and support sustainable growth in the built environment.

This year’s participation comes after PlanRadar’s landmark achievement in 2024, when the company was named the winner of the Cityscape Global Innovation Challenge for Construction Technology Excellence. The award recognized PlanRadar’s role in helping construction and facility management professionals eliminate paperwork, reduce rework, and improve project efficiency through simple and effective digital tools.

Driving Impact in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia

Since receiving the award, PlanRadar has strengthened its presence across the GCC, with Saudi Arabia emerging as a particularly strategic focus. The Kingdom is currently the largest construction market in the Middle East, supported by Vision 2030’s ambitious economic diversification plans and a pipeline of mega-projects that span smart cities, housing, transport, and tourism infrastructure.

According to recent reports, Saudi Arabia represents nearly 39% of the USD 1.5 trillion MENA project pipeline, underscoring its role as the region’s hub for real estate and infrastructure growth. At the same time, real estate transactions in the Kingdom surged 47% year-on-year in 2024 to USD 75.7 billion, highlighting the accelerating demand for innovative tools that can help developers, contractors, and facility managers deliver projects with greater efficiency and transparency.

Against this backdrop, PlanRadar is increasingly being adopted by organizations engaged in Saudi Arabia’s mega-projects, as well as facility management teams seeking to digitize operations. The platform’s proven ability to streamline workflows and ensure full project visibility positions it as a trusted partner in a market that is rapidly scaling and modernizing.

A Global Platform Delivering Local Value

Today, PlanRadar empowers more than 170,000 users across 75+ countries, with adoption growing rapidly in the Middle East. Customers consistently report measurable improvements in efficiency and sustainability, including:

• 96% positive experience using the platform
• 90% reduction in paper usage on-site
• 77% fewer errors and rework
• 87% time savings in defect management
• 95% repeat usage in new projects

PlanRadar’s global scale is complemented by its local adaptability. The platform is available in 22+ languages, making it accessible to diverse project teams and subcontractors across the region. Its customizable features ensure that organizations can tailor workflows to their exact needs, while onboarding processes are fast and seamless — with entire teams able to get started in as little as one week.

PlanRadar’s strength lies in its ability to combine powerful functionality with simplicity. The platform was built with site teams in mind, ensuring usability even for non-digital natives. Key features that will be showcased at Cityscape Global 2025 include:

• SiteView – 360° reality capture powered by AI, enabling project teams to virtually walk construction sites, review progress remotely, and combine visual data with project documentation for unmatched oversight and transparency
• Document Management – Secure, centralized storage for all project files
• Schedules – Real-time task and timeline management to keep projects on track
• Plans & BIM Models – Seamless integration of 2D drawings and 3D BIM data
• Reporting & Insights – Customizable reports and analytics for faster, data-driven decision-making
• Integration Capabilities – Connectivity with ERP, project management, and accounting systems

All these features are supported by robust security and data protection standards, ensuring sensitive project information remains safe.

Ibrahim Imam, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, PlanRadar, said: “This year to showcase how our platform – including our new SiteView 360° AI-powered reality capture – continues to support developers, contractors, and facility managers in achieving greater efficiency, collaboration, and sustainability across their projects.”

PlanRadar invites Cityscape Global 2025 attendees to visit Stand H4 – F90 to experience firsthand how its award-winning platform, now enhanced with AI-supported SiteView 360° reality capture, is empowering construction and facility management professionals across the Middle East.

Dubai, UAE, 10^th November 2025: Changan Automobile has announced the signing of a strategic cooperation agreement with Yango Group, a UAE-based technology company, marking a new milestone in Changan’s ongoing expansion across the Middle East and Africa (MEA). The signing ceremony took place at Changan’s Middle East and Africa headquarters, bringing together senior executives from both organisations.

The event was attended by Li Mingcai, Executive Vice President of Changan Automobile, Fu Yuanhong, Chief Representative of the Middle East and Africa Business Division, Xiao Feng, General Manager of the Business Division, and Yin Tong, Deputy General Manager of the Business Division, as well as Mr Bolat, Senior Vice President of Mobility Business at Yango Group, accompanied by a company delegation.

Through this agreement Yango Motors, the automotive business part of Yango Group dedicated to making vehicles more accessible, will serve as an official distributor of Changan vehicles, starting in Côte d’Ivoire with plans to expand to other markets across Africa. The partnership will supply reliable and durable cars tailored to the needs of African ride-hailing markets, aiming to elevate the travel experience for local consumers while driving the growth of sustainable mobility across the region.

“Our partnership with Yango Group is part of our long-term commitment to empowering global partners and accelerating intelligent mobility development across emerging markets”, said Xiao Feng, General Manager of Changan’s Middle East and Africa Business Division. “Combining Changan’s advanced technologies with Yango’s extensive mobility network allows us to fulfill our aim to deliver greater value and an enhanced travel experience to users across the region”.

The partnership reflects Yango Group’s continued investment in developing advanced mobility ecosystems across Africa and the Middle East. As part of its global expansion strategy, Yango aims to collaborate with leading automotive brands to enhance the quality, efficiency, and sustainability of ride-hailing and car-sharing experiences in Africa and the Middle East.

“We are proud to join forces with Changan Automobile to accelerate the evolution of smart, sustainable mobility across the MEA region,” said Mr Bolat, Senior Vice President of Mobility Business at Yango Group. “Through our technology, data insights, and vast user network, we aim to help shape the next generation of ride-hailing experiences; improving accessibility, safety, and environmental impact for millions of users. At the same time, we are committed to elevating fleet quality, empowering local businesses, and supporting our partner’s drivers to deliver a consistently better experience for everyone.”

As one of the world’s largest ride-hailing platforms, Yango Ride, part of the global tech company Yango Group, operates across Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America, making over 1.2 billion trips globally and supporting 2.1 million active registered drivers.

This partnership marks a transition from single-model procurement to multi-model business integration and joint brand promotion, injecting new momentum into the development of regional smart mobility ecosystems. Building on this foundation, both companies aim to expand their collaboration to new markets across the MEA region, offering consumers smarter, safer, and more sustainable mobility solutions.

Through close collaboration with Yango Group, Changan Automobile will provide ride-hailing customers across the Middle East and Africa with efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly travel options, contributing to greener, smarter urban mobility and a more connected future.

This partnership exemplifies a win-win model of resource sharing and complementary strengths, reinforcing how Chinese automotive brands are deepening their integration into the Middle East and Africa’s mobility ecosystem—driving innovation, sustainability, and growth across the region—while continuing to create long-term value in international markets.

November 7, 2025 – Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the AI Data Cloud company, and SAP SE, a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, today announced a new collaboration to enable organizations to seamlessly leverage Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud and SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) with semantically rich data. The joint effort will make Snowflake’s data & AI platform available as a SAP solution extension for SAP BDC customers. The new offering, SAP Snowflake solution extension for SAP Business Data Cloud, unites SAP’s deep expertise in mission-critical business processes and semantically rich data with Snowflake’s unified platform capabilities for building AI and machine learning solutions. SAP and Snowflake are also enabling zero copy sharing between SAP BDC and Snowflake to help customers get richer insights, build enterprise-grade intelligent applications and unlock AI-powered innovation that fuels business transformation.

“By tightly integrating SAP and Snowflake, we’re making it simple for enterprises to connect their critical business data with its rich context in SAP with the power of seamless AI app and data agent development at scale in Snowflake,” added Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product, Snowflake. “Enterprises can now innovate faster with Snowflake and SAP BDC and seamlessly share data between the platforms —zero-copy and fully governed.”

SAP Snowflake brings Snowflake into the open data ecosystem of SAP BDC and the business data fabric–empowering customers with greater openness and choice, while extending SAP BDC with Snowflake’s AI, analytics, data engineering, Marketplace, and collaboration capabilities. Customers can use SAP BDC with SAP Snowflake as a cloud-scale compute and storage option to extend the value of their data. Leveraging bidirectional, zero-copy data access, data and AI teams can work with semantically rich SAP data products in real time, within a unified governance framework. As a result, customers can harmonize SAP and non-SAP data while optimizing total cost of ownership across workloads and build agents and AI applications in SAP Snowflake fueled by trusted SAP data products.

“Bringing Snowflake to SAP Business Data Cloud empowers our customers with openness and choice,” said Irfan Khan, President and Chief Product Officer for SAP Data and Analytics, SAP SE. “Together, we combine SAP’s decades of leadership in mission-critical business applications with Snowflake’s modern data platform to deliver a unified, enterprise-ready, and SAP-supported experience that extends the value of business data across the entire ecosystem.”

With SAP Snowflake, customers can:

• Build a trusted, AI-ready data foundation to harmonize SAP and non-SAP data: Unify their data landscape with an integrated business data fabric—enabling more seamless zero-copy sharing, enriched modeling, and a complete, business-ready view of their data in real time for all data engineering, analytics, and AI and machine learning workflows across the enterprise.
• Accelerate AI business value with semantically rich data: Simplify AI governance, ground AI in organizational knowledge, and build tailored agents—helping to ensure more secure, context-rich, and intelligent applications across the enterprise.
• Develop intelligent applications grounded in mission-critical business data: Build, deploy, and continuously optimize intelligent applications faster with a harmonized and democratized data foundation powered by semantically rich, trusted data products that accelerate the pace of innovation and production.

In addition to SAP Snowflake, the partnership also includes SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Snowflake, a capability enabling bidirectional, zero copy data sharing with Snowflake. Enterprises already using Snowflake can leverage SAP BDC Connect to integrate their existing instances of Snowflake with SAP Business Data Cloud for more seamless, zero‑copy access, providing Snowflake users with real-time access to semantically rich SAP data products—without duplication.

SAP and Snowflake are supporting thousands of customers, including industry leaders like AstraZeneca, as they transform their industries with this partnership.

“AstraZeneca is constantly pushing the boundaries of science and is pioneering in life-changing medicines,” said Russell Smith, Vice President of ERP Transformation Technology, AstraZeneca. “Data and AI are central to achieving this aim, and our close collaboration with SAP and Snowflake complements our ability to access, process and analyze real-time data. This announcement will accelerate our mission and recognizes that every minute matters to make breakthroughs for patients.”

November 6, 2025 – Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, today announced several product innovations to its platform, empowering organizations to easily deploy agentic AI at scale and deliver trusted and accurate insights.

These enhancements include the general availability of Snowflake Intelligence, an enterprise intelligence agent that provides every user with the ability to answer complex questions in natural language and put insights at every employee’s fingertips. Together with advancements to Snowflake Openflow and Snowflake Horizon Catalog, organizations can drive more robust data insights by connecting all of their data — structured, unstructured, and semi-structured — from disparate sources and catalogs to power agentic AI. This all takes place within Snowflake’s secure, governed and interoperable environment – free of vendor lock-in.

Snowflake also announced a suite of enhanced AI-native and collaboration tools enabling developers to build, test, and deploy enterprise-ready AI apps faster and safer while reducing overhead and total cost of ownership – all within a single governed platform.

“For more than a decade, Snowflake has served as a cornerstone of global enterprises’ data strategies. Our next evolution is about bringing AI to this data, allowing every customer to unlock intelligence that is uniquely their own,” said Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product at Snowflake. “Our latest enhancements to the Snowflake platform make this possible, democratizing the power of AI so every employee can make smarter and faster decisions, fundamentally changing how our customers will innovate for years to come.”

Snowflake Intelligence: All Your Knowledge. One Trusted Enterprise Agent

Snowflake Intelligence is now generally available to Snowflake’s global customer base of more than 12,000 organizations. With a single question, Snowflake Intelligence can facilitate deep research and suggest solutions to previously difficult and time-consuming business problems — allowing users to move beyond the “what” to the critical “why.” Built for reliability and scale, it’s enterprise-ready with trust, governance, and security at the forefront, allowing employees to confidently access and analyze data through natural language while helping ensure that confidential information stays confidential. This, in turn, reduces the guesswork in decision-making, fostering a new culture of data across the enterprise.

In the past three months alone, more than 1,000 Snowflake customers – including Cisco, Toyota Motor Europe, TS Imagine and the USA Bobsled/Skeleton Team – have already leveraged Snowflake Intelligence to rapidly and easily deploy over 15,000 AI agents across their businesses.

“Snowflake Intelligence has transformed our development timeline, reducing agent deployment from months to weeks. This has fundamentally shifted our team’s focus from writing code, to prioritizing what truly drives value: building rich business context and robust semantic models,” said Thierry Martin, Head of Data and AI at Toyota Motor Europe. “The result is a significant competitive advantage — we’re bringing secure, compliant data solutions to market faster, while eliminating data movement risks.”

Powered by industry-leading AI models from providers like Anthropic, Snowflake Intelligence is transforming complex queries into conversational insights, ultimately democratizing data and AI access across the enterprise. New innovations from Snowflake’s AI Research Team make Snowflake Intelligence up to three times faster on text-to-SQL queries, delivering real-time answers with the same trusted accuracy. To increase the trustworthiness and accuracy of responses, the team also pioneered a novel evaluation method coined the Agent GPA (Goal, Plan, Action) framework that catches up to 95% of errors when tested on standard datasets, achieving near-human levels of error detection.

Snowflake Delivers the Enterprise Lakehouse with Enhanced Open Data Access and Flexibility for Agentic AI

Snowflake has also announced advancements to Snowflake Horizon Catalog and Snowflake Openflow (now generally available) to enable enterprises to easily connect all of their data from disparate sources and catalogs to fuel more robust, accurate and trusted AI-driven insights. New innovations to Horizon Catalog provide context for AI and a unified security and governance framework that secures and connects data across every region, cloud, and format — all interoperable and without vendor lock-in. In turn, Openflow allows enterprise users to securely automate data integration and ingestion from virtually any source, making it easier to keep data centralized across the enterprise lakehouse.

Snowflake also unveiled the following advancements to make data more accessible for AI agents (such as Snowflake Intelligence) to drive value — all with consistent security and governance:

• By bringing open APIs from Apache Polaris™ (Incubating) and Apache Iceberg™ REST Catalog directly into Horizon Catalog, Snowflake now provides customers with an enterprise lakehouse that centralizes governance, security, and interoperable access management across their data in open table formats.
• With Interactive Tables and Warehouses (now in private preview), Snowflake is redefining how enterprises can build and power AI agents and apps by helping organizations turn data into immediate insights and near real-time experiences.
• With near real-time streaming analytics (private preview soon), Snowflake is enabling organizations to act on live data within seconds, using the familiar tools and secure platform they already trust. Customers can now combine live data with historical context to power mission-critical use cases like fraud detection, personalization, recommendations, observability, and IoT monitoring.
• Snowflake is expanding integration options through its partnership with Oracle (now in private preview), enabling customers to harness near real-time change data capture built on Openflow to continuously stream transactional updates into the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
• Following Snowflake’s recent acquisition of Crunchy Data, the company has introduced Snowflake Postgres (public preview soon), a fully-managed service that brings the world’s most popular database onto the Snowflake platform. Snowflake is also open sourcing pg_lake (now generally available), a set of Postgres extensions designed to help developers and data engineers integrate Postgres with a powerful lakehouse system.
• Snowflake is also enhancing data resilience with Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (now in public preview) for managed Iceberg tables, further safeguarding enterprises’ critical data across the entire enterprise lakehouse.

Snowflake Unveils New Developer Tools to Supercharge Enterprise-Grade Agentic AI Development

Snowflake also unveiled a suite of new developer tools designed to help organizations rapidly build, test and deploy cutting-edge, production-ready AI apps faster and more securely.

• Developers can now streamline their data workflows with Cortex Code (in private preview), a refreshed AI assistant within the Snowflake UI that lets users interact with their entire Snowflake environment using natural language. Cortex Code helps users easily understand their Snowflake usage, optimize complex queries, and fine-tune their results to maximize cost savings.
• With enhancements to Snowflake Cortex AISQL (now generally available), developers can build scalable AI pipelines within Snowflake Dynamic Tables (now generally available) to create AI-inference pipelines through a simple declarative SQL query. Leveraging AI Redact (in public preview soon) within Cortex AISQL, users can scale more confidently with the ability to detect and redact sensitive data from unstructured data, allowing them to ready their multimodal dataset for AI while maintaining security and privacy.
• Snowflake’s centralized development environment Workspaces (now generally available) eliminates siloed data work and boosts collaboration, providing a unified editor for creating, organizing, and managing code across multiple file types. Workspaces is enhanced with direct Git Integration (now generally available), providing developers a seamless way to review version control, and VS Code Integration (now generally available), allowing users to work from their preferred Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and share code with the rest of their team.
• With dbt Projects on Snowflake (now generally available), enterprises can build, test, deploy, and monitor their dbt projects directly within their Snowflake environment — empowering engineers to focus on delivering insights rather than maintaining various tools and infrastructure. Snowflake is also helping organizations further accelerate developer productivity by running existing Apache Spark™⁴ code on Snowflake’s secure engine with Snowpark Connect for Apache Spark (now generally available).

RIYADH – 6th November 2025 –  New research from Pearson (FTSE: PSON.L), the world’s lifelong learning company, reveals gaps at career and learning transition points are costing Saudi Arabia an estimated SAR 62 billion in lost earnings annually for Saudi nationals.

Pearson’s “Lost in Transition: Fixing Saudi Arabia’s SAR 62 billion ‘learn-to-earn’ skills gap” details the economic and personal impact of learning gaps during major career transitions – from formal education to work, moving from one job to another, and disruptions caused by AI automation. In a youth-driven economy where roughly 70% of the population is under 35, the report recommends approaches to learning and skills development to support the goals of Vision 2030.

Paying the price for broken career pathways

Key findings from the report include:

• The total cost – Career transition inefficiencies and skills mismatches cost the Saudi economy SAR 62 billion in earnings annually for Saudi nationals. Including non-Saudi workers, losses rise to SAR 196 billion (4.2% of GDP).

• Automation disruption – Accounts for roughly half of the total losses and puts 23% of Saudi jobs at high risk. Reducing reskilling time for affected workers by just 20% could add SAR 6.3 billion in annual earnings.

• Education to work – As occurs in other key world economies, the transition from education to employment continues to be prolonged and could be better streamlined. High school and university graduates take an average of nearly 40 weeks to find work, reflecting persistent mismatches between their skills and labor market needs.

• Changing jobs – Involuntary separations highlight deeper mismatches. Displaced Saudi workers spend on average 11.3 months unemployed before re-entering the workforce, with around 40% out of work for more than a year.

• Generation at risk – Youth unemployment remains high at nearly 15%, and demographic pressures are rising: the population aged 20-24 is projected to grow from 2.69 million in 2025 to 3.22 million by 2030.

Five actions to build a resilient workforce and drive economic growth

Aligned to Vision 2030, Pearson has identified five key areas where collaboration across government, employers, and educators can strengthen the learning-to-earning pipeline, mitigate economic losses, and build a more resilient workforce. These recommendations include:

1. Supporting educators and employers to diagnose skills needs by identifying priority roles and tasks, enabling targeted skills development.
2. Shortening transition times by expanding internships, apprenticeships, and mentorships that provide early work experience and accelerate movement from classroom to career and from job-to-job.
3. Adapting curricula and training – both in formal education and vocational programs – to reflect real-world market demands and evolving technologies.
4. Expanding work experience opportunities through work placements and industry partnerships to bridge the gap between learning and doing.
5. Improving labor market intelligence by investing in platforms that enhance visibility into job openings and skill requirements to improve matching and reduce mismatches.

 

Naseem Tuffaha, Chief Business Officer, Pearson, said: “Saudi Arabia’s youth-driven economy holds tremendous potential, but inefficient transitions are costing SAR 62 billion annually while nearly a quarter of jobs face automation risk. The solution requires two key shifts: building modern skilling pathways that deliver job-ready capabilities and making ‘learning to learn’ a core competency across education and industry. This dual approach will help build the resilient, adaptable workforce needed to achieve the ambitions of Vision 2030.”

Dubai, UAE, 29 October 2025 – Swisslog, the global leader in designs, manufacture and optimize automated logistics solutions across the supply chain, is set to participate in Gulfood Manufacturing 2025, the region’s premier platform for exploring the future of food production through cutting-edge technologies and integrated supply chain solutions. Taking place from 4–6 November 2025 at Dubai World Trade Centre, Swisslog will be showcasing its automation solutions that will transform supply chains and support sustainable food production.

At the exhibition, visitors can experience live demonstrations of Swisslog’s industry-leading robotic storage and order fulfilment technologies, including AutoStore and a robotic palletizing demo. Together, these solutions cover the full food value chain—from production to e-grocery. Integrated with Swisslog’s software, they enable precise inventory and distribution management, helping food businesses scale operations and maintain quality in increasingly complex supply chains.

Rami Younes, General Manager of Swisslog Middle East, said: “As consumer demand evolves with the rapid rise of e-commerce, private-label goods, and prepared foods, manual processes simply cannot keep up. Businesses across the region are under increasing pressure to improve speed, reliability, and sustainability. With the UAE targeting AED 200 billion from logistics within seven years, efficient warehouse and supply chain operations are critical. Our warehouse automation solutions are designed to help companies scale with confidence, reduce waste, and ensure food safety while optimising productivity. At Gulfood Manufacturing, we will showcase the entire food value chain, demonstrating our capability to deliver full-scale solutions.”

Demand for advanced fulfilment and storage systems is accelerating, as the Middle East e-commerce sector is projected to reach USD 50 billion in 2025, following a 30% increase in online orders across MENA in 2024. With over 400 implemented projects worldwide, AutoStore is at the forefront of this shift, optimizing fulfilment and reliable order processing, enabling businesses to remain competitive

Swisslog has delivered more than 350 projects across 35 countries, working with global brands including Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Pepsi, as well as regional leaders such as Danube, Mai Dubai and Robostores. By reducing order cycle times, optimising space, and minimising waste, its tailored automation solutions help address one of the food industry’s biggest challenges: nearly 30% of food produced globally is lost at various stages of the supply chain. Smart automation reduces inefficiencies, ensuring greater sustainability and food security.

Gulfood Manufacturing provides a vital platform for F&B leaders to explore innovations that will define the next chapter of global food production. Swisslog experts will be available at Stand 131 in Hall 1 to demonstrate how its advanced automation solutions can future-proof operations in one of the world’s fastest-growing food markets.

Over recent years, global reliance on humanitarian assistance has risen dramatically. In 2024, nearly 300 million people were projected to require aid and protection — a surge driven by ongoing conflicts, climate shocks, and pandemics. Working at the frontline, humanitarian staff face growing risks, underscoring the urgent need for enhanced safety measures. IEC Telecom will join AIDEX — the world’s leading humanitarian aid and disaster relief event — to unveil a new innovative portfolio of tracking solutions, tailored to meet the critical needs of the humanitarian sector.

Humanitarian workers are essential in delivering aid to people in crisis, yet their safety is facing growing risks. According to Humanitarian Outcomes’ Aid Worker Security Report 2025, nearly 230 aid workers lost their lives in the first half of 2025 — already surpassing the annual total recorded in any year between 1997 and 2022. These numbers highlight the steep and rising cost of reaching vulnerable populations involved in bringing life-saving assistance to those in unstable and insecure environments.

Reliable communication and digital connectivity are now central to aid worker safety. Disruptions compromise missions and coordination, making secure communication and tracking tools indispensable for protecting lives. Today, IEC Telecom presented a new range of solutions intended to help management maintain complete visibility over remote personnel, share critical updates across multiple user groups, and receive timely SOS notifications — enabling rapid response measures such as dispatching support, mobilising rescue operations, or providing medical assistance when needed most.

“IEC Telecom has been serving the humanitarian sector for over thirty years, giving us first-hand insight into the harsh working conditions and specific requirements of aid organisations. Coordinated action is essential not only for mission success but also for ensuring the safety of staff operating across the globe. IEC Telecom’s new tracking portfolio, powered by Garmin’s leading hardware and managed through our Traksat digital platform, is purpose-built for organisational deployment,” explained Gwenael Loheac, President Europe & West Africa at IEC Telecom Group.

The new range presented at AIDEX today introduces a comprehensive solution built around the Garmin GPSMAP ® H1i Plus, a recent addition to Garmin’s handheld product line. This rugged GPS navigator features a modern 3.5-inch colour touchscreen, supports preloaded maps and enables the exchange of multimedia files. Most importantly for humanitarian missions, it incorporates an integrated Iridium® receiver, allowing field personnel to stay connected well beyond the limits of cellular coverage.

The Traksat platform by IEC Telecom enhances the capabilities of the GPSMAP H1i Plus, making it suitable for organisation-wide deployment with centralised management, post-paid billing and advanced reporting — a critical advantage for high-stakes missions. Personnel connected via the GPSMAP H1i Plus can be integrated into an organisational pool, which may be further segmented into groups and subgroups based on location or task. Administrators can establish geofencing, which can trigger timely alerts to ensure field teams remain within safe operational areas. In addition, the platform supports multiple mapping options and allows the implementation of mission checklists, enabling advanced visibility over remote operations. The system is designed for scalability, enabling headquarters to adjust settings, activate or deactivate licences, and scale usage up or down — all without the long-term commitments.

The introduction of this comprehensive solution comes at a pivotal moment, coinciding with a growing trend in the humanitarian sector known as localisation. In the face of substantial cuts to humanitarian funding, many major aid institutions are shifting towards reduced deployment of international staff in remote areas, relying instead on strengthened partnerships with local NGOs. In this context, the ability to monitor and support dispersed teams in real time becomes increasingly vital, ensuring transparency over remote operations in terms of resource allocation, while safeguarding both mission efficiency and staff safety on the ground.

Dubai, UAE – 23 October 2025 – Edenred, a leading digital platform for services and specific purpose payments and the undisputed market leader in salary processing and financial inclusion for the underbanked in the UAE, continues to reinforce its leading position in payroll card solutions, value-added financial services, and compliance-first innovation under the leadership of newly appointed Managing Director Claudio Di Zanni.

As the first company authorised by the Central Bank of the UAE to process WPS salaries, Edenred UAE has long positioned financial inclusion as the foundation of its offer in UAE — ensuring that access to financial services isn’t an added benefit, but a guaranteed outcome of getting paid.

Trusted by both large enterprises and a growing base of SMEs, the backbone of the UAE economy, Edenred UAE now serves more than 15,000 corporate clients, 2.5 million cardholders, and partners with over 10 banks and 20 financial institutions. Demand has been strong in sectors such as manufacturing, construction, and facility management—where reliability and seamless execution are critical.

Edenred UAE salary cards, C3Pay, powered by RAKBANK and part of the Mastercard network, can be used globally. A key driver of Edenred’s adoption success is its unmatched expertise in on-site training at worker accommodations, which helps large enterprises efficiently onboard thousands of employees. This ensures that workers understand how to activate their cards, utilise app features, and engage with key financial tools.

Claudio Di Zanni, Managing Director, Edenred Middle East, said: “Edenred UAE has set the benchmark for payroll and financial access in the region with digital innovative solutions, great ambitions and internationally committed teams. Our ambition now is to extend that lead by deepening trust with our clients, scaling services that matter to end users, and ensuring full compliance in a fast-evolving regulatory landscape. With unmatched reach, an expanding client base, and a proven model for financial inclusion, we are ready to shape the next phase of the region’s salary card ecosystem — developing its full potential and contributing to giving workers who were previously excluded from the financial system a secure, transparent, and dignified way to manage their money.”

Edenred UAE remains the reference in payroll solutions, as it continues to scale high-impact services, deepen banking partnerships, and reinforce its role as the benchmark for secure, compliant, and ethical financial access in the UAE and beyond. With a sharpened focus on innovation and strengthened leadership, it is entering a new chapter of platform excellence as the backbone of financial access for the UAE’s workforce.

23rd October 2025, Dubai, UAE – Nolte Küchen, Germany’s leading premium kitchen brand, is strengthening its presence in the Middle East as part of a renewed global growth strategy rooted in German design excellence and craftsmanship. Having been present in the UAE market since 2007 with Universal Trading Company (UTC), in a mutually agreed step to further ensure market development and expansion. The brand will now transition to a direct-to-consumer model under its new mainland entity, Nolte UAE.

As part of this expansion, Nolte Küchen will invest over AED 25 million in the coming years. This includes the launch of a flagship showroom on Sheikh Zayed Road by early 2026, and the establishment of a dedicated team of engineers, designers, and architects offering end-to-end kitchen solutions defined by German precision and quality standards. The move underscores Nolte Küchen’s confidence in the UAE’s role as a regional hub for design and innovation, as well as a key market in the company’s international expansion. It strengthens its direct relationships with both B2B and B2C customers through greater brand consistency, service excellence, and competitive pricing.

The UAE’s premium kitchen market has nearly doubled since 2020 and is projected to reach US$200 million by 2030, reflecting sustained demand for high-quality European design. The brand’s continued expansion aligns with this growth, positioning Nolte Küchen to meet evolving customer expectations through faster delivery timelines, improved service, and an expanded product range that includes Nolte Küchen, Nolte Neo, Express Kitchen, and Living & Spa. The brand’s mission remains to bring “Made in Germany” quality, design excellence, and innovation to every home, while catering to diverse market segments across both private and professional customers.

Selva Kumar Rajulu, Managing Director of Nolte UAE, said: “Since establishing Nolte FZE in the region in 2011, we have built a strong legacy rooted in innovation and trust. This new phase, as Nolte UAE, enables us to engage more closely with customers and partners, ensuring every project reflects German design excellence. The UAE has always been central to our journey, and this expansion reinforces our commitment to the market and its role in driving our global presence across high-growth international markets.”

In the Middle East, Nolte Küchen’s presence is anchored by its regional competence centre in Dubai, which oversees markets across 30 countries and have managed to deliver more than 80,000 project kitchens and 35,000 retail kitchens in the last years. Supported by over 75 branded showrooms across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, the Dubai hub delivers landmark developments such as Tilal Al Ghaf and Harmony Villas in Dubai, MERED’s Iconic Residences design by Pininfarina in the UAE, Rafal Residence in Riyadh, and Al Mouj in Muscat, along with large-scale residential and hospitality projects in Qatar, Jordan, and Kuwait. This regional infrastructure enables the brand to serve both developers and homeowners with scale, precision, and local expertise.

Beyond aesthetics, Nolte Küchen has earned the title of Germany’s most popular kitchen brand, recognised for its superior product quality, design innovation, and customer satisfaction by the German Institute for Service Quality over several years. The company offers one of the world’s widest range of finishes, materials, and configurations, with customisation options that set a global benchmark of personalisation in kitchen design. It also holds the distinction of being the world’s most sustainable kitchen brand, maintaining a 100% production base in Germany and the industry’s first independent sustainability report.

The UAE’s Net Zero by 2050 strategy and Estidama Pearl Building Rating System encourage developers and manufacturers to adopt more sustainable construction and design practices. Nolte Küchen is the only German kitchen brand with both FSC and PEFC certifications, reflecting its commitment to long-term environmental responsibility. The brand also releases annual sustainability reports, highlighting its continued investment in responsible production and transparency.