Zain Group, a mobile telecoms operator serving customers in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa, has announced it is joining the Hedera Governing Council
The operator said it is the first company from the Middle East region to participate on the council, joining a list of 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 form of distributed consensus that is faster, fairer and more secure than traditional blockchains. It offers a new way of collaborating and transacting online securely without the need for a trusted intermediary for people or organizations that don't know or trust each other.
Zain Group will gain extensive early insights into the trends and applications in distributed ledger technology (DLT) space through its participation on the Hedera Council 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 where online communities can collectively create and evolve shared worlds in cyberspace, and where developers can build trusted applications that enable people to play games and work together. End-users will also be empowered to safely and securely buy and sell goods and services, without having to entrust a central organisation with their data and privacy.
Bader Al Kharafi, Zain vice-chairman and Group CEO, commented, “Council membership provides Zain first-hand exposure to cutting-edge and secure technologies that drive innovation, e-commerce and B2B across the region.
“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.”
Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera, said, “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.”
