Denis Opudo
If you think quitting your cooperate job to follow your passion is hard, then you are missing much. Mohammed Alshli is a Saudi Arabian entrepreneur and is 30 years old. Mohammed graduated from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in 2011. Therefore, he had a degree in engineering. He had an urge of starting a business that will work well for the Arab youth worldwide. He also considered the tech-hungry group. Mohammed with his group of entrepreneurs decided to move to the UAE in 2016 to build a blockchain-based system. The system was to allow users in the Middle East to develop decentralized applications and smart contracts.
Mohammed worked in bank industry for a while in enterprise architect role. He handled enterprise solutions, payments, and treasury system. Moreover, he studied technology, innovation, management in France and Ireland. He, later on, worked with Microsoft for a period. Mohammed established some startups with ArabianChain as one of them. He had a feeling that he would be comfortable in as an entrepreneur than to be in cooperate world. This was when he attended the Unlock Blockchain conference in Dubai.
He came up with ArabianChain in 2017. The startup serves as a platform to Palmex. It also gives blockchain-based products and services to the region’s audience. Palmex is a new exchange for digital assets and currencies launched in January 2018. Mohammed and his group focus on the Arab region. They are starting with UAE before they move to Gulf then move to various markets later on. The other potential targeted markets are Morocco and Egypt.
His motivation for Middle East market came after Dubai had announced plans to put in place a citywide blockchain-based platform by the year 2021. Blockchain technology is a digital ledger located in different areas. Therefore, it helps in securing online transactions and data. One can use it to build and secure online applications and also smart contracts. Besides, any group or individual upon the request of any person or entity can access the smart contract
The idea has to go global, but it has to start locally. Mohammed is also keeping an eye on the Saudi market. This is after the recent economic decisions to startup the kingdom’s markets. That was announced by Saudi Arabia in 2016 an economic move to assist the kingdom to get new sources of income. This will hence help it counter the world drastic fall in oil prices.
