We often take a militaristic, “tough” approach to resilience and grit. We believe that the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be. However, this entire conception is scientifically inaccurate. But what if we flip this hardened association and look at resilience from a recharge perspective, rather than what we can endure? Harvard Business Review have a beautiful piece on this new notion and we feel we could all put it into practice with success.

This week we reflect on our MD's awesomeness over the last weekend where she moderated a panel discussion at the World Business Angel Investors Week, on 'How Digitization Will Future-proof MENA’s Gulf Economies'.  More on how that went below...

Elsewhere in the newsletter, we mull over our usual Statista finds, including how plants have by far the highest share of living biomass on Earth with roughly 82 percent or 450 gigatonnes of carbon, followed by bacteria and single-cell microbes with 14 and fungi with 2 percent. On a completely separate note, we also looked at the rise and fall of Bitcoin – the roller coaster has raced skyward again, with the record-breaking price of over $66 thousand hit this week. While this is down to $64 thousand at the time of writing, the yo-yo hasn't yet shown serious signs of giving in to gravity again. We'll be flagging more on cryptocurrencies as our work with SM-ART – a platform dedicated to preserve fine art masterpieces, objets d’art and high-value collectibles by bringing them back into the public domain through non-fungible tokens (NFT's) – comes into fruition in the coming weeks and months.

Till then, have a good one!

Team E.

Cultivating Conversations

If there's one thing our MD is best at, it's communicating. This past weekend, Leah Tedrow, moderated a roundtable discussion on how digitization will future-proof MENA’s Gulf economies as part of the World Business Angel Investors Week live at Expo. Economic diversification is the linchpin of future growth for the MENA region.

Looking at where much of this began to take flight, we have to start in 2015, when the world entered a new era - the 4th Industrial revolution - the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital and biological world. A fusion of advances in Artificial Intelligence, robotics, the Internet of things, 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing and DATA harnessing.

Nowhere has that been more prevalently embraced than in the Middle East, and in particular here in the UAE.

The UAE is focused on developing a resilient, knowledge-based economy and is expected to witness the largest impact of AI, at around 14% of the country’s GDP. And for those of you here in the UAE, we're sure most of you have experienced those developments just by simply walking around Expo this month and of course, engaging with the multitude of robots roaming around and asking them for directions!

The UAE also ranked 11th in the world of consumers investing in NFTs, behind China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States - well ahead of many other western and Gulf countries.

Globally, evidence of digitization permeating our world can be found in the rise in interest and investment in Cryptocurrencies and Digital assets such as NFTs and NFAs.

OpenSea, one of the leading NFT marketplaces, hit $1 Billion in trading volume in the month of August alone, this year.

We’ve seen the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin, which has increased in value from $10,700 to nearly $66,000 in just the last 12 months.

But digitization is also moving into our everyday lives - and in the future, will dominate how we live and work. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are currently building the entirely smart and sustainable cities of Masdar and NEOM - leading the way in the transformation of what we can expect the future to look like in our urban areas.

The recent pandemic too, has created an accelerated timeline into digitization through necessity - forcing the human race to adapt quickly - shoving us into a world of endless zoom meetings and moving our working mentality and workspaces from brick to click.

In the end, whether we liked it or not, we have inevitably realized that, SHIFT HAPPENS.

SHAPING TOMORROW

We’re always on the look out for dynamic change makers, disruptors and new information to fuel our own dexterity and creativity. So, this section sees a few of our recent picks on how the world’s outlook is changing. We hope these little nuggets will help you land on that 'aha!' moment you were looking for!

OUR DIVERSIONS

We know everyone says it's not all work, it's about play, too – and as much as we don't want to sound like a broken record, there is truth in the truism. Like we said earlier, we are all about ingesting the complex and the trivial in equal measure. In fact, we love nothing more than thinking deeply about the more 'playful' things in life. Read ' em and ponder away.

TODAY'S QUOTE

Quality is not a one time activity. It is a continuous process. Quality is not the result of efforts of one single person.

THE OUTLOOK

Tis the best season that ever did season.