Omani start-up wins WEF award

Cubex Global, an Omani startup supported by Oman Technology Fund (OTF), has won the UpLink Ocean Solutions Sprint (Marathon of Innovative Oceans’ Solutions award), a competition launched by the World Economic Forum, to recognize the best innovative technology-based ideas to save oceans. As many as 50 participants representing 15 countries took part in the competition with more than 300 applications. Cubex Global, set up by the Omani team including Hood al Hawqani, Hamza al Kharousi and Shaikh Ihsan Tariq, was cited for its mission to reduce global shipping emissions by up to 20 per cent through buying and selling unused container space on existing cargo ships routes. Around 50 per cent of an estimated 100 million shipping containers are empty while moving from port to port, a massively wasteful practice that results in 280 million tons of carbon emissions and costs $25 billion every year. Cubex is an innovative opportunity for world's traditional shipping and shipping companies, which uses a real-time blockchain-enabled online marketplace to optimize empty cargo space on any container heading to any destination. Since its launch in October 2019, Cubex platform has reserved 5100 shipments in consideration of amounts exceeding $100,000. It has already received international funding, as well as the Oman Technology Fund totalling $750,000.