Digital & Technology
Driving future economic growth
The UAE’s economic diversification policy aims to transform the UAE into a knowledge-based economy that encourages innovation, research and development, and the adoption of cutting-edge technologies.
Deepening global bilateral ties and the announcement by the UAE Cabinet to allow 100% foreign ownership in specific industries onshore provides an attractive opportunity within the rapidly evolving UAE tech and digital sector.
OWI firmly believes the next few years will define the UAE’s journey to becoming a digital innovation global powerhouse. The UAE government has initiated several initiatives driving the Digital & Technology sector to encourage innovation and attract talent and entrepreneurship. Technology powers every sector, whether existing or new. In addition to creating new economic sectors and jobs, it enhances the efficient use of resources and productivity across existing sectors.
There is increasing demand for consumer products that fit the faith of young, wealthy Muslim millennials. The 1.8 billion Muslims across the globe are an underserved demographic. OWI believes the rapidly growing populations in emerging markets like UAE, MENA, Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia offer ripe regions for halal technology products and services.
OWI seeks out, partners, and invests in innovative businesses and individuals that create new technological advancements and enhance existing sectors by providing them with state-of-the-art technologies that respond well to the evolving technology revolution.
By the Numbers
Stats as at 2019
UAE Population of 9.52m
purchased a product and service via a laptop or desktop computer
have a mobile money account
of internet users use mobile banking
e-commerce spend per capita
point-of-sale per capita in US dollars
have an account with a financial institution
e-commerce spend as a share of retail spend
e-wallets share of e-commerce spend
“We focus our efforts on building the future of the UAE based on a forward-looking vision that adopts global trends and developments, supports the brightest young minds, encourages new innovations and creative ideas, and embraces advanced technologies. We want the UAE to be a partner of choice for technology firms and AI talents from around the world. We want the UAE to be the best in the world in developing this futuristic sector and investing in its potential.”
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai
Our Investment Focus
OWI Digital & Technology, with its partners, addresses five significant challenges experienced by the GCC regarding digital transformation:
Convincing decision-makers to go all-in on digital and analytics
Finding suitable collaboration models to bridge the broad GCC skills gap
Overcoming resistance within the current organisation
Replacing a command-and-control operating model with an agile one
Scaling digital and analytics talent
We focus on four major digital target sectors
Fintech
A focus of investing in companies that use technology to conduct financial services’ fundamental functions, impacting how consumers store, save, borrow, invest, move, pay, and protect money. Insuretech refers to the innovative technologies; new digital tools developed to optimise insurance companies’ performance, deliver a better customer experience, and unlock advanced analytics’ potential.
• Payment and Receipts
• Investments/Savings
• Mobile Money/Remittance Insurance
Healthtec
The healthcare industry worldwide is migrating from an unplanned series of reactive treatments to a seamless continuum of care, with greater emphasis on well-being, prevention and early intervention. Instead of the clinic-centred systems, healthcare delivery will focus on an ecosystem of individual care with a greater impact on patients.
• Smart Care
• Smart Services
• M-Health
• Internet of Medical Things
Eductec
Technology is the great equaliser in improving and providing quality education. Education technology is becoming a global phenomenon, and as distribution and platforms scale internationally, the market is projected to grow at 11% per annum, to $341 billion by 2025.
According to research, there is a positive correlation between the mean year of schooling of a country and its GDP per capita – thus proving far- reaching economic impact access to higher levels of education can provide. Digital solutions can accelerate this growth and provide learners with quality education, increased knowledge and skills.
Agritech
OWI’s context of Agritech includes everything from technologies focussed on farmers to enhancing efficiencies for manufacturers, retailers, restaurants and consumers. A holistic farm to fork strategy.
The application of Agritech can be to grow more food from less space or use less water. It can be the use of robots to replace manual labour for planting or picking crops. It can also be the use of big data, machine
learning and AI to understand the soil or growing conditions better to improve yield.