“We’ve been here before. Dubai will be just fine.”
So said Abdulrahman, an old and dear Emirati friend, his face calm with confidence, as we discussed the contemporary perception of an overheated property market and the prospect of a correction. I thought back to my first day in Dubai, as a junior analyst watching smoke rise from the nearly finished Atlantis hotel, just 10 days from opening. The press insisted it would open on time. I had my doubts. I was wrong.
Six weeks later, Lehman Brothers collapsed. Some economists speculated that the informality of the local business culture might offer protection. It didn’t. Eventually, the population dropped sharply, but the exodus was composed mainly of those engaged in the ecosystem of the early-21st century gold rush that was Dubai’s frenzied property boom. The productive core remained, and Dubai rebuilt smarter.
Then came Covid. With tourism central to the economy and Expo 2020 looming, the airport closure and strict lockdown seemed like a death knell. But swift action, including early investment in vaccines, meant Dubai rebounded fast, capitalising on hesitation elsewhere.
Of course, Abdulrahman’s memory stretches back much further than mine: long before the world’s tallest tower or largest mall. Born in 1957, the year Dubai obtained a loan from Kuwait to dredge the creek, he witnessed the city’s first steps – precipitated by that first act of leverage – toward becoming a global hub. His stoicism made me reflect on my early months at Digitalis. Coming from the adjacent field of business intelligence, I saw real promise in one of the world’s most resilient countries. Why does the UAE always bounce back? And now, at Digitalis, why is this the right place to grow?
Machines like me
A few weeks ago, I attended a discussion hosted by one of our strategic communications partners. I’ve long seen Dubai as open to technological innovation, but this conversation reinforced just how far ahead the city is—not just regionally, but globally. The government has developed over 120 smartphone apps. Admittedly, figuring out whether to pay a parking fine through the RTA app or the Dubai Police app can be a learning curve, but a welcome advance from the foot-weary process of setting up utilities 17 years ago, involving multiple trips marshalling pieces of attested paper between government departments. Today, Dubai isn’t retrofitting old systems; it’s building from scratch with tech at the core.
From blockchain platforms to autonomous vehicles and drone delivery, innovation is foundational. For companies like Digitalis, this creates an ideal environment; clients are curious, experimentation is encouraged, and adoption is fast. The private sector mirrors that momentum. The Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence lists 800 AI companies in the city, while the DIFC (Dubai International Finance Centre) Innovation Hub—where Digitalis is registered—hosts more than a thousand firms, from startups to VCs and research labs.
Of course, one of the attractions of the UAE’s economy is its variety. As well as being a world-leading tech centre, the country is diversified well past its external oil and gas-driven perception – and indeed well past the other trappings of its reputation abroad, namely the hospitality and tourism permitted by 300 days of sunshine each year, being able to ski when the temperature tops 40 degrees outside, and shopping in the world’s largest mall. Of relevance to a company such as Digitalis, would be the over 50 top-tier international law firms.
The pillars of wisdom
As well as being economically diverse, the UAE has great cultural richness. This is to be expected of a country which has the lowest percentage of nationals among its resident population (about 12% of us are Emirati), but despite “locals” being in such a small minority in their own country, their culture punches above its weight.
One element of Dubai I’ve fully embraced is its traditional, community-based sense of decency—rooted in respect for privacy and reputation, both personal and familial. These values have long appealed to me and align closely with what we do at Digitalis: safeguarding clients’ privacy and online presence.
In a country where education is a national focus (I chair the board of the UAE’s oldest English curriculum school), where ruling families govern, and where family-run firms anchor the economy, these issues matter.
The next 17 years
The UAE has transformed in the 17 years I’ve lived here. Today’s Dubai is a place where people settle and plan for the long term. I’ve always loved amateur theatre, and in the last few years two separate groups of friends have founded community theatres here. The 86km desert cycle track, opened a decade ago, is a smart investment that’s helped retain top-tier expats. The Golden Visa scheme, introduced in 2019, reflects a leadership that’s both practical and future-focused, aiming to keep serious contributors by offering long-term security.
At Digitalis, we’re committed to the region. Our CEO is relocating to Abu Dhabi and has asked me to launch a regular networking evening – featuring padel, of course, the UAE’s fastest-growing sport. We’ve registered in the DIFC. Our clients—international law firms, strategic comms agencies, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals—are already here. With its deep respect for privacy, strong reputation culture, and tech-driven global outlook, the UAE is a natural second home for Digitalis, a UK-headquartered firm with international ambitions.
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email webrequests@digitalis.com
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to webrequests@digitalis.com