Power Letters 2023: Hatem Dowidar, group CEO, e&

We started 2022 as ‘Etisalat’, a telecom company and ended it as e&, one of the global tech conglomerates.

For the upcoming years, we will strengthen customer and community experiences and add shareholder value. The pandemic accelerated the global digital revolution, and the rapidly changing world created new white spaces for businesses and customers alike.

These emerging gaps provided massive opportunities for new and innovative solutions, prompting e& to become a leader in a range of technology fields, from artificial intelligence (AI) to the Internet of Things (IoT), fintech, and the latest digital content, bringing technology solutions to customers.

We envision e&’s transformation as a long-term journey with accelerated growth, as we progress across all our business verticals.

We have taken the initial steps to enable the digital transformation for UAE government entities, large-scale enterprises, corporates and organisations, unlocking possibilities with advanced digital solutions. We have already made advancements in delivering and deploying future technologies such as the metaverse, AI, blockchain, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), IoT, data centres and cloud computing.

During 2022, we partnered with G42 to create the UAE and Middle East’s largest data centre provider; collaborated with Meta to drive innovation with enhanced AR and VR experiences; ventured into the metaverse with ‘e& universe’; dfree voice and video calling app Gr; introduced the region’s first Telco NFT collection; expanded collaboration with Amazon Web Services to serve key industries and meet the growing demand for digitalisation, among other initiatives.

While taking steps to strengthen our position as a global technology player, we have declared the group’s net zero targets in the UAE by 2030 during COP27, becoming the first UAE private sector entity to join the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators (UICCA).

This reaffirms the group’s commitment to climate change efforts by focusing on key initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint.

As e& remains focused on maintaining its environmental, social and governance business model, we are actively seeking opportunities to invest in industries currently experiencing high-growth and sharp focus, including fintech, entertainment, worktech healthtech and edtech. This allows us to sit in the front row, sometimes jointly at the helm, acquire, grow and support the visionary tech startups moving this world forward.

With a year of achievements behind us, we look forward to amplifying and accelerating our efforts and aspirations in 2023.

With a focus on forging business partnerships in research and development, technology applications and procurement that enable the digital transformation of governments, large-scale enterprises and corporates and further our mission to be the leading international tech group that makes it possible