“All industries are the same – you have to stay away from the people who have a propensity toward jargon and towards trying to create their little islands of expertise. Instead, just think about what a company actually does – there’s no need to complicate it.”
If ever a quote summed up 2020 and the world’s hyper-fast transformation into a more practical approach to employees’ working from home and the realisation that the building blocks of technology are now the building blocks of society, it’s this wisdom from Derick Smith, founder and CEO of AmmbrTech.
The company, founded in Luxembourg in 2016, has now moved its headquarters to Abu Dhabi, which has been in the news a lot lately for attracting globally enduring technology companies, many of which have been snapped up by the likes of Uber and Amazon.
Smith, who opened his first company at the age of 19, says one of the reasons for the move was the UAE’s forward thinking: “I was monitoring the evolution of crypto and blockchain for some years, and as things started to evolve, Abu Dhabi Global Market caught my eye. They have some really elegant, well-thought-out crypto regulations being developed in their jurisdiction,” he explains.
Blockchain in Abu Dhabi
The UAE is the seventh country that Smith, originally from South Africa, has opened up a company in, and he says it’s been the best in terms of both infrastructure and regulations.
“The UAE has been by far the easiest to do business in so many ways,” says Smith. “Working with Hub71 was absolutely sterling – the support, the speed at which things happen. It was so smooth. The visas, the willingness of people to talk to you, have meetings, assist you – all of that was brilliant.
“The office was ready the day we landed. And to be honest, they’re getting better all the time, so someone joining Abu Dhabi’s tech or AI and blockchain scene now would find it even easier.”
AmmbrTech’s offering was intriguing pre-Covid-19, but now, with digital transformation and decentralisation at the forefront of most companies’ minds, the move to a country that has a push to create new technology as part of its government’s goals from now until 2030 seems a smart one.
The company’s remit is twofold: firstly, to provide broadband to underserved countries, and secondly, developing an edge-cloud infrastructure that’s highly inclusive of local communities and businesses. And it deploys a raft of leading technology, including AI and blockchain to do it.
Smith explains: “We want to get broadband in the hands of people who are underserved today – which is pretty much half the planet. As we enter new markets, if we come across customers or areas where there’s no broadband, we can quickly scale it out.”
Edge-cloud solutions
“Regarding the edge-cloud, it’s very much built around the principle of self-sovereign digital identity. Where your identity – the private key that manages your credentials rests with you – our entire organisation is built around those principles and operates on them,” he says. “We’re able to build hyper-local markets and shorter supply chains. And that’s the big lesson from Covid – you’ve got to shorten the supply chain and become more self-sufficient. The edge-cloud infrastructure and decentralised marketplace allows us to achieve greater diversity of marketplaces, cultures and localities.”
And that commitment to diversity is something that both the Abu Dhabi government and AmmbrTech share. Smith summarises: “Abu Dhabi is doing an exceptionally good job attracting talented people to come here and make sure a lot is happening in the tech scene. The team at Hub71 went above and beyond to introduce us to corporates and decision-makers and to the help us network. The dialogue is there if you want to pick it up – it’s up to you.”
Learn more about the Hub71 Incentive Programme in our free whitepaper “Roadmap to Abu Dhabi: How to unlock new opportunities for your Tech Startup”, which includes information on page 19 for how to be one of the few startups chosen to join the programme, and best tips for success. Download whitepaper
