div style='direction: ltr;'>Zain Group’s Data Office, in collaboration with ZainTECH, has been awarded the Hybrid & Infrastructure Modernization Award at Cloudera’s EVOLVE25 Data Impact Awards in Dubai. This recognition celebrates Zain Group’s regional leadership and commitment to building a modern, scalable, and intelligent data ecosystem across its operations.The Cloudera Data Impact Awards celebrate the remarkable achievements and groundbreaking stories of customers who are driving meaningful change through data.The award highlights Zain Group’s successful transformation toward a modernized hybrid data infrastructure, powered by Cloudera. Through this transformation, Zain Group has achieved a unified, secure, and flexible environment that bridges on-premise and cloud systems — enabling faster innovation, optimized costs, and seamless data access across its seven operating companies.Key benefits of the modernization include:● Agility and scalability: Empowering teams to manage and analyze data efficiently across multiple environments.● Improved data governance and security: Ensuring data privacy, consistency, and compliance across all business units.● Enhanced performance and cost efficiency: Leveraging hybrid cloud flexibility to optimize infrastructure usage.● Accelerated innovation: Enabling advanced analytics and AI-driven insights that support smarter business decisions.Mohammed Al Murshed, Chief Technology Officer of Zain Group commented, “This award reflects Zain Group’s ongoing journey toward digital and data excellence. Enterprise data has become one of the most valuable assets within organizations, and the ability to organize and store it, secure it, and gain actional insights from it, is a critical success factor. By modernizing our hybrid infrastructure with Cloudera, together with ZainTECH and Zain operating companies, we are building a stronger foundation for innovation, security, and growth.”Sergio Gago Huerta, Chief Technology Officer at Cloudera said, “In the era of AI-driven innovation, we are delighted to recognize Zain’s meaningful change through data. The future belongs to those who can act on all their data securely, responsibly, and in real time. Zain has not only successfully transformed its environment but is leading the way with innovation.”Zain Data Office is a central function within Zain that focuses on managing and leveraging the companys data assets to drive innovation, enhance decision-making, and ensure compliance with data regulations. It aims to standardize data management, promote a data-driven culture, and enable advanced analytics and AI strategies to benefit the business and its customers. Key functions and benefits of the Zain Data Office• Improved Data Governance and Compliance - data is managed in line with regulatory requirements and internal policies, thus reducing risks associated with data privacy, security breaches, and legal penalties.• Enhanced Data Quality: setting standards for data accuracy, consistency, and completeness to make more informed and strategic data-driven decisions to optimize network performance, understand customer behavior, and marketing strategies.• Efficient Data Utilization: A centralized data office enables cross-functional teams to access the right data efficiently, eliminates data silos and promotes collaboration between marketing, customer service, and network operations departments.• Innovation and Competitive Edge: Leveraging advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning, the data office can identify new business opportunities, such as offering personalized customer services or predictive maintenance for network equipment.• Better Customer Experience: By analyzing customer data and feedback, helps tailor services to individual needs thus improving customer satisfaction and retention.•Support for Business Agility: With centralized data governance and streamlined data pipelines, the data office enables faster access to real-time data supporting quick decision-making, responding to market trends and customer demands more efficiently and stay ahead of competitors.Zain Group’s Data Office continues to lead the company’s vision of becoming a data-driven organization, using modern infrastructure and technology to unlock value, efficiency, and intelligence across the business.Ends