Sleem Hasan speaking at DUBAI in5

DUBAI INNOVATION WEEK: An Entrepreneur’s Journey: The Privity Way- speaking at in5

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Sleem Hasan speaking at DUBAI in5Privity’s CEO Sleem Hasan spoke at the in5 conference earlier today. Click here to enjoy the video!

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An Entrepreneur’s­ Journey: The Privity Way

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Overview:

Trial and tribulations are part and parcel of any entrepreneur’s journey. In this session the speaker will talk about what separates chaff from the grain.

Key Presentation Points:

Characteristics of an entrepreneur who apart from having a vision, perseverance, ability to adapt and pivot must wear humility, be articulate, focused and versatile to achieve their goals. The session will highlight journey of Privity and its portfolio company Loyyal joining prestigious Dubai Future Accelerator program.

Speaker Profile:

Sleem Hasan CEO & Founder, Privity an independent Dubai-based advisory firm that was founded in 2004. The company invests in entrepreneurs with interesting and unique ideas and helps them develop and grow. Privity is agnostic to geography and industry vertical and focuses on the quality of the entrepreneur and the compelling value proposition of the idea.

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The Loyyal journey in Dubai seen through Privity’s lens

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The Loyyal journey in Dubai seen through Privity’s lens

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/loyyal-helps-to-make-dubai-the-global-leader-in-blockchain-technology

 

Circa late November 2014, I received a call from my dear friend Sadiq

Hussain and my neighbour (we live 25 floors apart!) suggesting I meet with

his house-guest, Gregory Simon, who was in Dubai as a speaker at the first

Blockchain conference in the UAE. We met on the 30F of our building  and

after exchanging pleasantries got introduced to this almost “wunder-tech”

called Blockchain. My two maths degrees let me down initially but over the

months and several Skype calls later with Greg exercising utmost patience,

I got my epiphany moment, to which I uttered-“Greg, this is probably one of

the most exciting phenomena we are witnessing in our lifetimes since the

advent of electricity!”- a statement now indelibly imprinted in my brain.

Since then, Loyyal(fka Ribbit.me) completed a Seed round of funding, the

Dubai Government launched the Global Blockchain Council and more recently

launched the Dubai Futures Accelerators to which Loyyal got chosen as one

of the 31 inaugural cohorts. On Oct 9th at the DFA they showcased a live

demo to an audience of about 100 people and yesterday I read with humility

and delight the article above in BravenewCoin.com- needless to say, a proud

moment for Privity, hence the need to document and share this journey for

posterity.

Sleem Hasan

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Google-LUMS Partner for Pakistan Startup Summit 2016

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The South Asia Emerging Markets team at Google’s headquarters in Asia, led by Tania Aidrus and Khurram Jamali, partnered up with Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) to organise Pakistan Startup Summit 2016 in Singapore.

Under this partnership, Google sponsored a group of startup founders from top business incubators and accelerators of Pakistan to attend this event at its office in Singapore. It was a four-day programme designed for the Pakistani startups to understand the Singaporean entrepreneurial landscape, explore business opportunities in Singapore, pitch to investors and venture capitalists and meet similar startups in business incubators and accelerators in Singapore for possible business partnerships.

The nine startups selected for this programme included BeautyHooked, Dockit, Treble, RepairDesk, Vanilla Arcade and Interacta from LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship, Makistra from Plan9, Hireonic from Nest I/O and Ezpz Sehat from Invest2Innovate.

The organising team at Google arranged several sessions and activities for the startups including a session with Amer Qureshi, Director Deloitte Private in Australia, on financial planning and how to raise funds for your startup and a session with an ex-Googler Steve Feiner, CEO, A Better Florist, on the experience of running a business in Southeast Asia.

There was a pitch practice session with two highly experienced professors of entrepreneurship at INSEAD Singapore campus, Ash Singh and Paul Kewen-hite, where all nine startups got to hone their elevator pitches with individual feedback from the mentors. Pakistan Startup Workshop by Saleem Hasan of Privity, an introduction of the VCs and entrepreneurial landscape of Singapore and a session on how to build a great business by Chua Lee Lock, CEO of Vertex Ventures and a networking session with Jeffery Paine of Golden Gate Ventures were some of the other sessions arranged for the startups.

 

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Unilever Foundry 50 Bring Home and Store of the Future to Lions Innovation

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Huge News!! Out of 4500 startups reviewed by Unilever, Loyyal has been selected as one of only 50 for the Unilever Foundry 50 at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this month.
In conversations leading up to this announcement, Unilever senior leadership made it clear they see the unprecedented transformational impact of Loyyal’s blockchain and smart contract technology on incentivizing not just the relationship of a brand with it’s consumers but with every other participant in the entire supply chain.
A very proud moment for Team Loyyal on being selected by Unilever Foundry and even prouder moment for Privity for having identified their potential even earlier. Loyyal – a Privity portfolio company.

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Loyyal announces development of a blockchain based program to incentivize tourism

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Loyyal, a Privity portfolio company, today announced the development of Dubai Points, a blockchain based program to incentivize tourism, with the public backing of the Dubai Future Foundation, and as part of the Dubai Future agenda approved by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The announcement came from the Keynote Blockchain Technology Conference, which was held today in the Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai. Dubai Points brings a number of government bodies together with established private-sector corporations to enrich the tourist’s experience while visiting Dubai.

Using Loyyal, the first universal platform for loyalty and rewards built using blockchain and smart contract technology, Dubai Points will be earned and redeemed dynamically at participating locations based on the tourist’s unique lifestyle as well as any number of other data points such as time of day, past behaviour, location, age etc.

“This will be both the world’s first tourism incentification program and the largest scale public/private sector collaboration using blockchain and smart contract technology ever. We want Dubai to become the happiest city in the world by 2020. This program helps by giving Dubai a customizable and personal relationship with every visitor,” said Greg Simon, CEO and co-founder of Loyyal.

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Privity FZ LLE will be attending the first blockchain technology conference in the middle-east at the Keynote 2016 on May 30th 2016 in Dubai.

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To outline and define the technology that will affect and shape the future, Keynote Events will be hosting the first Blockchain Technology Conference in the Middle East on Monday at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.

The conference, being supported by the Smart Dubai initiative with Dubai’s Future Foundation as a strategic partner, will be hosting representatives from local organizations such as du, Dubai Holding, Emirates NBD, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Smart Dubai, Paypal, JP Morgan and Mashreq, alongside venture capital groups, regulators and banks and investors from the digital currency community.

Seen as the main technological innovation of digital asset and a payment system Bitcoin, Blockchain technology is a new way to automate cross-industry interactions and represents huge increases in efficiency and massive cost savings. This technology works by creating a new infrastructure within current industries or companies to connect them to each other in previously impossible ways.

“Having been a part of the Bitcoin and Blockchain universe for several years, I’m truly excited about what these technologies are going to do in the coming years,” Moe Levin, founder of Keynote Events and member of Global Blockchain Council, told Gulf News Journal. “At a time when the UAE is gearing up to become the regional hub for FinTech (financial technology), it makes perfect sense to host a conference of this kind. Everything within the world of finance is about to change, and the best way to stay ahead of the curve is by attending the Blockchain Technology Conference.”

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Dubai Future Foundation and Keynote Conference in Strategic Partnership to host international platform for digital currency

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“I am honoured to be a part of this great initiative.”~Sleem Hasan

 

In line with the Dubai Future Agenda approved by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, as a roadmap for the Dubai Future Foundation to shape the future of the strategic sectors, the Foundation announced a strategic partnership with Keynote Conference to host the conference in Dubai on May 30, 2016.

As an international platform for digital currency, the event at Burj Al Arab will bring together pioneers of financial technology sector companies and inventors to discuss the latest financial technology programmes, tools and digital products and explore future opportunities to achieve sustainable growth of the UAE economy.

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Former Grameenphone Director Joins Boloro Global Limited

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NEW YORK, May 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Boloro Global is pleased to announce that Delwar H Azad, a mobile financial services pioneer and executive with over 25 years of mobile financial services, telecom, and operations experience has joined the management team as Executive Vice President Strategy, Product & Solutions.

“Azad brings a wealth of global experience in Mobile Money, Payment Transactions & Mobile Technology,” says Ann Camarillo, CEO & President Boloro Global. “His dynamic and innovative approach will be a great addition.”

Most recently, Azad served as a Director in Grameenphone, a major Telenor subsidiary and the leading telecom service provider in Bangladesh with 56 million subscribers. While at Grameenphone, he held several critical positions including Head of Financial Services for payment and transactional services, Head of New Initiatives responsible for all non-voice services and strategic projects, and Head of IS/IT Architecture, Business Process & Governance looking after IS/IT investments.

“Azad is an industry leader within Financial Services and was responsible for taking the first bill payment services by a mobile operator to the market. Within the Telenor Group he is considered one of the leading authorities on mobile financial services for the unbanked,” said Petter-Borre Furberg, CEO Telenor Myanmar. “Being responsible for the Telenor group initiatives on Financial Services I had the pleasure of both working with and learning from Azad.”

Azad also served on the Board of Directors of Tameer Micro-Finance Bank in Pakistan to assist in the launch of the innovative Easypaisa Branchless Banking initiative.

“I am delighted to be a part of Boloro, a truly next generation mobile payments network,” said Azad. “Boloro’s patented process, true interoperability and multiple applications will boost commerce, digital money growth and accelerate financial inclusion worldwide.”

Prior to Grameenphone, Azad was General Manager at Square, the largest conglomerate in Bangladesh with diversified businesses, where he led the group’s ICT transformation and the launch of first of its kind satellite based communication business in the country. Azad has also worked as the Head of ICT in a leading manufacturing company to lead the complete automation of manufacturing to administration including capturing machine data.

Azad has an Engineering degree and an Executive MBA with a Leadership Diploma from Stockholm School of Economics.

About Boloro Global Limited:

Boloro is a next-generation global payments network that offers consumers the ability to securely pay for goods and services using any kind of mobile phone and account. Boloro replaces cash and offers financial services to the many unbanked in emerging markets thus accelerating financial inclusion and access. Boloro delivers financial dignity to the population at large.

Headquartered in New York City, Boloro operates in South Asia, Middle East and Africa and soon entering Latin America, Caribbean and East Asia. For more information, visit www.boloro.com.