Business View Civil and Municipal | April 2021

7 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL APRIL 2021 Khurram Shroff, Chairman of Dubai’s IBC Group, has confirmed that the company will move its corporate headquarters to Toronto, the capital of the Ontario province of Canada. The IBC Group has also instituted a more flexible work policy for its employees, who can choose their office location, or continue to work from home. T he IBC Group, one of the Middle East’s oldest Blockchain investment companies, has more than 700 employees worldwide, and investments in over 4,000 Blockchain projects. Founded in 2014, the IBC Group is currently headquartered in Dubai, UAE. However, in a move prompted by Toronto’s rapidly growing status as a tech hub, the IBC Group has announced that it will be shifting its corporate headquarters to the Canadian city. Tens of thousands of immigrant tech workers have flocked to Toronto in the past few years, making it the fastest-growing tech hub in North America. According to a recent study, 25% of Canada’s workforce is made up of immigrants. And in the tech space, that number is an even higher 40%, or 350,000 workers. “We have over 100,000 people immigrate to the Toronto region each year, which is twice as many as the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Jason Goldlist, cofounder of TechToronto, a community for tech innovators that organizes a monthly technology event, where entrepreneurs get to meet, and learn from, Toronto tech leaders. More than 140 languages are spoken in Toronto, making it the most multicultural city in the world, as well as being a hub for innovation and cutting-edge tech, such as Blockchain. The Toronto Stock Exchange recently listed the world’s first Bitcoin ETF, and iMining Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Inc. (iMIN), which is set to acquire the IBC Group-backed CanETH subject to final approval by TSXV, emerged as the best performing stock on the TSX Venture Exchange, on its first day of public trading. Khurram Shroff, Chairman of the IBC Group, points to these strengths as the drivers behind the company’s decision to move its corporate headquarters to Toronto. “We believe this move best positions us for growth, as well as providing our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work,” Khurram elaborated. IBC Group has been at the forefront of Blockchain-based projects and initiatives, globally. The Group’s investment in the POS Blockchain was instrumental in the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain reaching the required threshold for its launch in December 2020. Ethereum is the world’s second-largest DUBAI-BASED BLOCKCHAIN INVESTMENT FIRM IBC GROUP TO MOV TORONTO, JOINING CANADA’S GROWING BLOCKCHAIN ECO-SYSTE OPENING L INES