UAE operator du has always been at the forefront of the country’s technological development with the revolutionary solutions and services that it offers to its customers. Lately, du has been very active in the area of smart cities given the efforts deployed in Dubai to make the city a leading smart city. In this context, it has chosen to take part in the 2^nd edition of Smart Cities World Forums’ “Building the SMART Future” conference as the Smart ICT Partner. At the event, we spoke to Jihad Tayara, VP ICT Business Development, EITC, to know more about the operator’s participation in the event.

A number of leading financial institutions have expressed fears that cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin could play a potentially disruptive role in the world's financial sector.

The word blockchain has been thrown around a lot recently and has become the ultimate buzzword within several industries. Applying blockchain in banking has become one of the most discussed topics within the banking and finance sector.

Espeo Blockchain, a consulting brand of Espeo Software with 10 years of experience, declared that it has chosen Dubai as its new hub to set up an office, after recognizing the region's growth potential and interest in blockchain technology.

Abu Dhabi Ports has announced the acquisition of 11 new specialized refrigerated vehicles by its subsidiary, MICCO Logistics, which boosts its local final-mile vaccine delivery capability to over 1.1 million vaccine doses per day.

China has launched a blockchain-based smart cities identification solution, which will assign a unique global ID to smart cities infrastructure. It is expected that the new solution will enable better information sharing and connectivity between smart cities.

Global blockchain specialist firm ConsenSys is launching the first cohort of its ConsenSys Academy Developer Program on August 1st, 2017. The ConsenSys Academy Developer Program is a first-of-its-kind, end-to-end blockchain training program. It begins with Phase1, an immersive online module that will kick off with a welcome video from Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys.

On Tuesday, the pioneering cryptocurrency platform announced that Enjin’s ENJ Coin has been addedto their Wallet & Card App alongside bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Binance Coin (BNB) and XRP.

District 2020, Chinese investment and incubation company, announced a collaboration with Shanghai-based Atlas Capital Holding as the latest tenant to join its development project.

Dubai is fast moving toward achieving its goal of becoming the world's first government to execute all implementable transactions on blockchain by 2020, an international expert on blockchain has said.

EITC (du), from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), will build the first Blockchain Platform as a Service in UAE (BPaaS) in partnership with ConsenSys, the leading blockchain solutions provider and venture production studio building decentralized applications and offering an integrated set of solutions for the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem.

Etisalat Digital, in partnership with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Avanza Innovations, have developed UAE Trade Connect (UTC), a new nationwide platform that will use the latest disruptive technologies to digitise trade in the UAE. The initial phase will focus on addressing the risks of double financing and invoice fraud before turning to other key areas of trade finance.

Etisalat Digital has announced Shahada, a tamper-proof digital certificate platform which is to be introduced to all educational institutions in the region, in collaboration with Smartworld.

A number of China's leading technology firms have partnered on a pioneering new smart city initiative that has been created to ensure the smooth integration of emerging technologies designed to transform major cities.

HUAWEI CLOUD officially launched its Blockchain Service (BCS) for global use after launching it for commercial use in China on October 10th this year. Now available on the international HUAWEI CLOUD website, the service helps global enterprises and developers create, deploy, and manage blockchain applications quickly and at minimal cost on HUAWEI CLOUD. Its global launch lays the foundations for a distributed global blockchain platform.

The IOTA foundation joins the EU’s Blockchain Initiative to interact with regulators and policy makers in the hopes of progressing global standards.

Moscow has announced that it will pilot a project which implements blockchain technology into its electronic voting system. The Russian capital will become the first city in the world to implement the emerging technology in e-voting on such a large scale.

PwC is one of the leading professional services networks in the world, helping to build trust and solve some of the region's most important problems. The firm works with governments and enterprises in the Middle East to completely transform their business models and embrace digital transformation.

Singaporean startup, Limestone Network, has planned to build a smart city in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Avanza Solutions has signed an MOU with Smart Dubai Office to implement a citywide blockchain-based payments platform.