VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 30, 2025--
TELUS Digital Experience (TELUS Digital) (NYSE and TSX: TIXT), a leading global technology company specializing in digital customer experiences (CX), today announced the opening of its TELUS Digital Dubai office in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This marks the company’s entry into the Middle East, reinforcing its commitment to supporting its clients around the world with innovative, AI-fueled solutions that drive customer engagement and a more efficient enterprise.
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With accelerating demand for digital transformation across the Gulf region, Dubai offers an ideal hub for TELUS Digital to provide end-to-end services through strategy, delivery, and managed operations - with expertise in digital strategy consulting and experience design, AI-powered automation, and customer experience modernization - all supported by its global team and delivery model.
AI in Dubai powers TELUS Digital’s regional strategy
“Opening a local office in the Middle East is a natural step in deepening our presence in key growth markets,” said Tobias Dengel, President, TELUS Digital Solutions. “Across the Gulf region, there’s growing interest to work with full-service partners from the strategy development phase through to designing and building digital experiences, AI platforms and customer solutions at scale. This is exactly where we excel. Our expert team located around the world brings together consulting and product strategy with deep expertise in AI, computer vision and automation to help our clients build intelligent, future-ready experiences. The Gulf region’s forward-thinking infrastructure and pro-innovation environment make it the ideal place to do this work.”
The Middle East accelerates its AI investments
Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of national strategies across the Middle East, with countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar making ambitious investments to drive economic diversification and digital leadership. In the UAE, the government’s AI 2031 strategy sets out a bold vision to become a global leader in AI, supported by major public-sector initiatives and multi-billion-dollar investments in AI infrastructure and compute capacity.
These efforts are fueling innovation across critical sectors such as energy, transportation, logistics, healthcare and education, positioning the region as a growing hub for AI research, development and deployment. As the UAE positions itself at the forefront of AI adoption, TELUS Digital’s new Dubai office will serve as a launch point to enable work across those key sectors as well as additional verticals including financial services, telecom and media, hospitality, and retail.
“What sets TELUS Digital apart is our ability to combine the precision of a bespoke partner with the scale and experience of a global organization that spans more than 30 countries,” said Mona Kadouh, Managing Director, TELUS Digital Middle East. “We are deeply invested in understanding our clients’ specific challenges rather than selling generic solutions. We like to say that we “fall in love with our clients’ problems” - a mindset that we demonstrate through our hands-on approach, leveraging proprietary GenAI and AI data platforms, and supported by a strong ecosystem of trusted technology partners.”
TELUS Digital expands its global delivery in South Africa and India
TELUS Digital recently expanded its global delivery footprint with the addition of its second site in South Africa, located in Cape Town, and its sixth site in India, in Ahmedabad, located in GIFT City, the country’s first operational smart city and Special Economic Zone (SEZ). These sites provide strategic proximity to key markets in Europe and the Middle East, and expand the company’s CX delivery capabilities and multilingual support, as well as its ability to support key business functions for clients, including IT, HR, talent acquisition, finance and workforce management. Across its Centers of Excellence in India, TELUS Digital also provides specialized expertise in digital transformation, data annotation and AI services.
With increasing demand for AI in the UAE and the broader Middle East, TELUS Digital Middle East is committed to supporting UAE digital transformation goals and smart city initiatives. Our CX innovation capabilities help clients across sectors embrace responsible, AI-powered change.
Visit our TELUS Digital Dubai location page to explore how we support AI in the Middle East: telusdigital.com/about/locations/dubai
About TELUS Digital
TELUS Digital (NYSE & TSX: TIXT) crafts unique and enduring experiences for customers and employees, and creates future-focused digital transformations that deliver value for our clients. We are the brand behind the brands. Our global team members are both passionate ambassadors of our clients’ products and services, and technology experts resolute in our pursuit to elevate their end customer journeys, solve business challenges, mitigate risks, and drive continuous innovation. Our portfolio of end-to-end, integrated capabilities include customer experience management, digital solutions, such as cloud solutions, AI-fueled automation, front-end digital design and consulting services, AI & data solutions, including computer vision, and trust, safety and security services. Fuel iX ™ is TELUS Digital’s proprietary platform and suite of products for clients to manage, monitor, and maintain generative AI across the enterprise, offering both standardized AI capabilities and custom application development tools for creating tailored enterprise solutions.
Powered by purpose, TELUS Digital leverages technology, human ingenuity and compassion to serve customers and create inclusive, thriving communities in the regions where we operate around the world. Guided by our Humanity-in-the-Loop principles, we take a responsible approach to the transformational technologies we develop and deploy by proactively considering and addressing the broader impacts of our work. Learn more at: telusdigital.com
Celebrating TELUS Digital’s regional expansion into the Middle East with the opening of the new Dubai office. From left to right: Alex Shafran, Managing Director, Solutions Architecture; Will Mayo, Global Senior Vice President, Commercial; Mona Kadouh, Managing Director, TELUS Digital Middle East, and Amanda Mawson, Vice President, Law and Governance.
TENERIFE, Spain (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization sought Saturday to reassure residents of the Spanish island where passengers of a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship are expected to be evacuated, issuing them a direct message that the virus was “not another COVID.”
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is headed to Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife early Sunday.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, were due on the island Saturday to coordinate the disembarkation of passengers and some crew.
“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a message to the people of Tenerife.
“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now,” Tedros added.
The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said nobody on the Hondius is currently showing symptoms of the virus.
Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.
Some on Tenerife say they are worried. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have voiced concern about being stigmatized.
“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else, why bring it to the Canary Islands?”
Others said they empathized with the boat's passengers, but were still concerned.
“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero. She added: “We feel a bit unsafe, we don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”
Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said passengers and some crew would disembark in Tenerife “under maximum safety conditions.”
The ship will not dock but will remain at anchor. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms and won't be taken off the ship until a flight is already in Tenerife waiting to fly them off the island, Garcia said during a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.
Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.
All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, Garcia said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.
Those disembarking will leave behind their luggage, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.
Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, the minister added.
According to a letter sent by the Dutch foreign and health ministers to parliament late Friday, Spain has activated the EU civil protection mechanism for a medical evacuation plane equipped for infections diseases to be on standby in case anyone on the ship becomes ill. That person would then be transported by air to the European mainland.
The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the ship company to arrange repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. Those without symptoms will go into home quarantine for six weeks and be monitored by local health services.
As the ship is Dutch-flagged, the Netherlands may also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, it said.
Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.
It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.
Dutch public health authorities have been monitoring people who were on a flight that was briefly boarded by a Dutch ship passenger who later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people who were on the flight and had symptoms have all tested negative for hantavirus, Dutch National Institute for Public Health spokesperson Harald Wychgel told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press reporters Angela Charlton in Paris and Helena Alves in Tenerife contributed to this report.
A Spanish Civil Guard officer inspects the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Media crew members stand in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, scan the horizon with binoculars during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, watch epidemiologists board the boat in Praia, during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger checks his camera inside his cabin on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Crew members of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, wait their turns for a first interview with epidemiologists, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, takes a photo of the ship's weighing anchor in Praia, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
