Addressing you in the early phase of a worldwide pandemic, and viewing things retrospectively, I remember a great number of crises, which ultimately became the starting point for a dynamic impulse and definitely ushered the world into new eras of technological transformation. When I launched HitekNOFAL Solutions 33 years ago, the world was still experiencing the Banking Crisis of the 80s (better known as "Savings and Loan crisis").

Ever since, the world has experienced the economic crises of the 90s and the early 2000s, plus the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The main feature of each crisis was the temporary interruption of capital accumulation; but each time, the economy recovered and new technologies reinvigorated the business world.

That is why I have reasons to believe that we, at HitekNOFAL Solutions, are now ready for the next dynamic recovery of the economy and the forthcoming, technological transformation of our societies. We have shaped two clusters of our solutions portfolio in order to address the most fundamental needs of tomorrow's smart cities, namely Smart Infrastructure Solutions and Security Solutions.

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With the expected global recovery, our physical and digital worlds will become more intertwined than now; digitalization will therefore have to enable smart cities in terms of sustainability, mobility, security and opportunity, while managing the environmental impact and urban resilience. Tomorrow's smart urban agglomerations will consist of innumerable, interconnected systems that will have to overcome complex challenges related to the transportation, energy, water and waste management, communication, information distribution, and eventually emergency cases.

The new world, which is expected to emanate from the present crisis, will rely on intelligence and analytical capability, integrated communications and technology, multi-agency collaboration, and shared command & control. The 4th Industrial Revolution will be unfolded in its entirety, transforming the way we live even more dramatically than the earlier ones.

Our strategic direction and roadmap fully empower us to provide our current and prospect customers -at the local and regional levels- with FTTx Solutions; Safety & Security Solutions; Fiber Optic Sensing Solutions; Next Generation Networks; Unified Communication and Collaboration Solutions; Data Center Solutions; IoT Solutions; Wiring Systems; and Professional Services and Training.

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I am therefore confident that, after we experience a breakdown of labor markets in the next months, we will see new, smart urban centers arise and bring about different features of global economy, other forms of international connectivity, and diverse concepts of labor market, such as telecommuting. Personally, I don't think the existing economic policy paradigms will be of further value or use, so the technical know-how and the technological innovations will determine even more markedly the new shape of the world economy.

It becomes self-evident that, similarly with the aftermath of the Oil crisis of the 70s, there will be a spatial aspect of the present crisis. Pretty much like major investors abandoned the traditional industrial centers in Northern England and the American Middle West in the late 70s and shifted their focus toward the then leading financial centers, present urban centers will be devalued and new ones will surface due to Internet, interconnecting, and knowledge-based work. Then, the stronger this crisis is, the more dynamic the new beginning will be!

Will we, in Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa, view this world-making event as a global turning point?
Will we take it as an opportunity to effectively drive the recovery towards new concepts of interconnection?
It depends on how smart the existing business leaders will prove to be in a new world, which as we already defined it at HitekNOFAL Solutions before more than a decade, will be … an even smaller place!