A MENA region first: Zain Group joins Hedera Governing Council to create a safer, fairer, more secure internet

KUWAIT CITY, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zain Group [Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN)] the leading mobile telecom innovator serving 49.5 million customers in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa today announces it is joining the highly innovative Hedera Governing Council.

Zain is the first company from the Middle East region to participate on the Council, joining a list of prestigious 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 next-generation form of distributed consensus that is faster, fairer and more secure than traditional blockchains. It offers a new way for people or organizations who do not know or trust each other to securely collaborate and transact online without the need for a trusted intermediary. Through its participation on the Hedera Council, Zain Group will gain extensive early insights into the trends and applications in the distributed ledger technology (DLT) space 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 in which online communities can collectively create and evolve shared worlds in cyberspace, and on which developers can build trusted applications that enable people to play games and work together. End-users will also be empowered to buy and sell goods and services safely and securely, without entrusting a central organization with their data and privacy.

As a leading regional digital lifestyle operator, Zain consistently looks to ways technology can provide new solutions to its individual and business customers while also improving its own operating efficiency. Furthermore, the Hedera Hashgraph patented technology platform addresses the universally important issue of the environment as its power usage is super-efficient, utilizing a fraction of the electricity that blockchain platforms use. This is in line with Zain Group's membership of and commitment to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which provides a reporting framework and guidance to address climate change.

Zain Vice-Chairman and Group CEO, Bader Al Kharafi commented, "We feel a sense of purpose in joining the Hedera Governing Council, which has numerous blue chip, innovation-driven organizations all interested in driving the development of blockchains and the wider DLT space, which we have already noted has phenomenal potential. Council membership provides Zain first-hand exposure to cutting-edge and secure technologies that drive innovation, e-commerce and B2B across the region." 

Al-Kharafi continued, "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. Our participation in the Council also speaks to another pillar of Zain's corporate strategy, which is to collaborate with leading industry players to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and thereby improve the products and services we can deliver to our customers."      

Hedera aims to realize its vision to create a safer, fairer, more secure internet through a focus on addressing four fundamental challenges to the adoption of public DLT - technology, security, stability, and governance. For the vision to deliver impactful results, the network needs to be governed by representatives from a broad range of market sectors and geographies, each with world-class expertise in their respective industries.

Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera commented, "We are delighted to have Zain Group join the Council, given the company's sound track record of innovation, and professionalism in the development and delivery of cutting-edge mobile services and applications. We believe the Council will be enriched greatly by this first organization to join us from the Middle East region, given Zain Group's eight country footprint. 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."

The Hedera Governing Council's members contribute technical expertise to manage the technical roadmap, business expertise to advise on business operations, and legal expertise to help navigate the evolving regulatory environment.

About Zain Group
Zain is a leading telecommunications operator across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to over 49.5 million active customers and an annual turnover of circa US$5.5 billion as of 31 December, 2019. With a commercial presence in 8 countries, Zain operates in: Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and South Sudan. In Lebanon, the Group manages 'touch' on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain has a 15.5% stake in 'INWI', through a joint venture. Zain is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN). We recommend the Investor Community download the "Zain Group Investor Relations" Mobile App. For more information please email [email protected]  or visit: www.zain.com; www.facebook.com/zain; www.twitter.com/zain; www.youtube.com/zain; www.instagram.com/zaingroup; www.linkedin.com/company/zain

About Hedera
Hedera Hashgraph is an enterprise-grade public distributed ledger for building decentralized applications. Developers can build secure, fair, blazing-fast decentralized applications on top of the Hedera platform. Dr. Leemon Baird, Hedera Hashgraph Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, and Mance Harmon, Co-founder and CEO of Hedera, patented the groundbreaking hashgraph technology after working together at the United States Air Force Academy and as founders of Trio Security, BlueWave Security, and Swirlds, Inc. For more information, visit https://www.hedera.com, or follow us on Twitter at @hashgraph, Telegram at t.me/hashgraph, or Discord at https://www.hedera.com/discord. The Hedera whitepaper can be found at https://www.hedera.com/whitepaper.

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Zain Group
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Hedera Hashgraph
Zenobia Godschalk
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Hedera Hashgraph
Emily Kielthy
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SOURCE Hedera Hashgraph

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