Dubai based startup, 01Gov, the first Arab platform for government innovation raises six-figure seed round
Dubai-based startup 01Gov has raised six-figure seed investment. Dr.Saeed Khalfan Aldhaheri, an entrepreneur and innovation expert, is the angel investor in this round.
“We are proud and grateful to close our seed round investment, a key milestone in our exciting journey towards the future,” Ibrahim Ahmed Elbadawi, Founder and CEO of 01Gov said.
As a unique GovTech startup in the region, 01Gov strives to empower the public sector across the Arab world to be future-ready. The company has been incessantly offering a rich range of products and services, to inspire the public sector leaders and employees and provide them with the needed skills, attitudes, knowledge and tools to make the shift into the digital era and design the governments of the 21st century.
Being the first Arab platform for government innovation, 01Gov offers a daily updated open content in Arabic under the theme of “Government of the Future” within a variety of domains such as data, innovation culture, artificial intelligence, future foresight and storytelling to name a few. The portal’s visitor can access thousands of resources in the shape of case studies, video stories, white papers, online webinars and so on.
In one of its most recent innovations and as a response to the Covid-19 lockdown, 01Gov has designed and delivered the first virtual government innovation lab in the Middle East. A digital space in which government officials can remotely collaborate to innovate and experiment with new ideas and test new solutions to create greater public value.
This lab falls under Government Innovation as a Service (GIaaS). It was inspired by the fact that 01Gov itself is a virtual company by design, and its growing and creative team members, who are based in more than 10 Arab and international cities, have never operated from a single physical location.
“Only one Arab country has managed to secure a spot within the top 50 countries on the 2019 Global Innovation Index,” Elbadawi said. “While many Arab states have announced bold and futuristic national visions, turning those visions into reality requires a digital, agile, and innovative public sector that belongs to the 21 st century,” he added.
Commenting on 01Gov’s successful round of investment, Elbadawi asserted the company’s aim to accelerate its growth and further scaling its well tested hybrid business model which combines the power and scalability of the digital platform with the depth and warmth of the human face to face conversations that take place in training rooms and innovation labs.
“I’m sincerely grateful to our clients and partners across the Arab region and beyond for believing in our story and wiki-writing it with us. And I’m thankful for our creative & diverse team members,” Elbadawi stated.
Dr. Saeed Aldhaheri said, “I’m excited to partner with 01Gov, a unique startup in the region with an impressive track of achievements that I have been following for years. Ibrahim & his team have succeeded in empowering the leaders of the public sector in the UAE and the region with a new perspective to approach and tackle the challenges and opportunities of the 21 st century. A fresh entrepreneurial approach that brings the creativity and agility of an innovative digital startup to the government space. That’s why, for instance, 01Gov has managed to respond to the COVID-19 crisis much faster than big corporations and provided its clients and the public sector a unique value in a critical time.”
“The timing of this investment is significant, considering the fact that the world is emerging from the unprecedented Anthropause to an unknown post-COVID-19 future that’s still unfolding. In 01Gov, we are ready to continue collaborating with the leaders of the government and non-government sectors across the region and beyond, to jointly shape the future that we want for our societies and generations to come. And I would like to seize this opportunity to invite all those who believe that our region deserves a brighter future, to join us, at any capacity, in building the governments of the future... now,” Aldhaheri added.
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