Business

Somalia’s construction boom in Mogadishu gives women high ambitions

Published

3 months ago

June 15, 2025

Fardowsa Hanshi & Anthony Irungu

BBC News, Mogadishu

Anthony Irungu / BBC Saadia Ahmed Omar (right) takes a photo of herself and Fathi Mohamed Abdi (left) atop a building under construction in Mogadishu. They are both wearing hard hats over their headscarves and are in high vis yellow vests. Ms Omar makes the victory sign as she takes the photo. — Fathi Mohamed Abdi (L) and Saadia Ahmed Omar (R) have overseen more than 30 multimillion-dollar projects

Construction is booming in Somalia’s capital city and as Mogadishu literally rises from the ashes of its violent past it is also giving unexpected opportunities to women like Fathi Mohamed Abdi and Saadia Ahmed Omar.

The two young female engineers have been overseeing the construction of a 10-floor apartment complex in Taleh in the city’s Hodan District.

Wearing hard hats they navigate their way through construction material, issuing instructions to a team of workers – all of whom are men.

“When I started, people doubted me,” 24-year-old Ms Abdi, the chief operating officer of Arkan Engineering Services, a Somali-owned construction company, tells the BBC.

“They would ask, ‘How can we trust a house built by a woman? How can I trust my money and property with a young female engineer?'”

She and her colleague Ms Omar have been practising engineers for the last five years.

“Mogadishu needs us,” says Ms Omar, who is also 24. “When I was young, this city was in chaos. Now, we are part of its reconstruction.”

Somalia, a former Italian colony, has experienced a prolonged period of civil war after the government of President Siad Barre collapsed in January 1991.

Even now, scars of decades of war are still visible – like in the central district of Shangani where there are bombed-out buildings. But the ruins are becoming hidden or replaced by tall office complexes and apartments, and a skyline dotted with cranes and scaffolding.

Both young women were born during the civil war and grew up witnessing their country fragmenting. While many Somalis chose to leave, they stayed, driven by a passion to rebuild, despite the fact that an insurgency was being waged by al-Shabab, a group linked to al-Qaeda.

“I think part of the reason women are getting more chances in this field is because there’s so much work to do, and not enough professionals to do it. That creates space for us,” Ms Omar says.

Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC Mogadishu's skyline showing multi-storey buildings under construction and several cranes. — Over the last five years, more than 6,000 buildings have been constructed in Mogadishu

Ibrahim Abdi Heyle, chairman of the Somali Engineers Association, agrees the high demand for skilled professionals is leading to change – even if slowly in Somalia’s traditionally male-dominated society.

“With numerous ongoing infrastructure, energy, and technology projects, the workload has significantly increased. As a result, the association actively encourages greater participation from women, emphasising that they are not only welcomed but also vital in filling critical gaps in the workforce,” the 34-year-old says.

“The association believes that empowering women in engineering not only helps meet the growing demand but also brings diverse perspectives and innovative solutions to the industry.”

According to the office of the mayor of Mogadishu, over the last five years, more than 6,000 buildings have been constructed, marking a significant change in the city’s landscape.

“Security in Mogadishu has improved, leading to an increase in high-rise and commercial buildings,” says Salah Hassan Omar, the mayor’s spokesperson.

Nonetheless it has not been an easy path for Ms Abdi and Ms Omar as only 5% of engineers are women – and they often find opportunities for mentorship are scarce.

“When I applied for internships, most companies rejected me,” Ms Omar recalls. “They didn’t think a woman could handle the physical demands of engineering. I searched for three months before someone finally gave me a chance.”

Today, the two are among the most recognised female engineers in Mogadishu, having overseen more than 30 multimillion-dollar projects.

“The city is now home to taller buildings and modern infrastructure, a stark contrast to the Mogadishu of the past,” Ms Abdi says proudly.

AFP / Getting Images Children dive, play and swim in front of the ruins of an old building on the seashore of Hamarweyne district in Mogadishu — There are fears that the classical look of old Mogadishu will be completely lost

But not everyone is pleased with the transformation. Veteran architect Siidow Cabdulle Boolaay laments the loss of the city’s historical character.

“The buildings that once graced Somalia before the war were not only beautiful but also attracted attention due to their Italian-style architecture, which was rare in Africa at that time,” he tells the BBC. “The urban planning of Mogadishu was highly structured.”

Mr Boolaay also has safety concerns: “The sand used in Mogadishu’s buildings is salty, which undermines its effectiveness.”

Sand from Somalia’s long coastline is often used to make cement – a practice that is generally discouraged and, in many circumstances, restricted by international building standards because the high salt content can cause the corrosion of steel.

“These tall buildings are not designed to withstand fire or heavy rain, and safety for the tenants is not considered during development. Many of these buildings lack fire extinguishers and proper electrical installations,” he adds – visibly disappointed.

He is wary of the pace at which buildings are being constructed, which he says is compromising quality control.

For years, there were no regulations, leading to concerns about their structural integrity.

Mr Omar, from the mayor’s office, admits this was the case until three years ago – and says nothing can be done about those buildings.

But he insists there is now “quality control and nobody will build a building without it”.

“We are [also] preparing new laws that will clearly define where high-rise buildings can be constructed and where only residential houses should be built.”

Yet there are worries that while regulations are in place – there are often no follow-up checks because of the speed of the building boom.

Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC Fathi Mohamed Abdi and Saadia Ahmed Omar talk to three construction workers on a site in Mogadishu — It is rare to see women taking charge of a construction site in Somalia

Ms Abdi and Ms Omar, who graduated from Plasma University Mogadishu’s faculty of civil engineering, say under their firm all their projects have been approved by the local authorities.

The rapid growth of construction projects has been attributed to diaspora investments as well as improved security – although Islamist militants who control large swathes of southern Somalia still target the city.

According to the World Bank, remittances made up 16.7% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 – something that has given opportunities to architects and engineers.

But the rapid urbanisation has also exposed Mogadishu to infrastructure challenges – it lacks a proper sewage system and unregulated borehole drilling risks depleting groundwater reserves.

Christophe Hodder, a UN climate security and environmental adviser, warns that the unchecked construction boom could lead to long-term environmental consequences.

“We need a co-ordinated approach to water management, or we risk a crisis in the future. Each new building is digging its own borehole… in a small space, there could be 10 or 20 boreholes,” he told the BBC.

The government, in partnership with international organisations, is working on a new sewage system, but its implementation may require demolishing existing buildings – a controversial move that could displace residents and businesses.

Mr Hodder adds that there is a high population density in Mogadishu – people driven into the city by drought and conflict.

An increase in the urban population, especially in slum areas, might further increase poverty and social disparities, he says.

Despite these challenges, Mogadishu’s future looks promising. The city is striving to implement urban development regulations, improve infrastructure and ensure sustainable growth.

Even the bombings by the Islamist armed group al-Shabab – whose fighters tend to target plush hotels often occupied by politicians – does not dent the enthusiasm of the Somali Engineers Association.

Mohamud Abdisamad / BBC A view from up high of Mogadishu showing a main road and lots of new multi-storey buildings and the sea seen on the horizon — The engineers hope Mogadishu will become a modern city and a model for post-conflict reconstruction

Mr Heyle admits it can be upsetting for architects and engineers whose buildings are destroyed but notes that Somalis have become resilient – especially those studying engineering.

“A lot of explosions happened; our dreams did not stop on that. Today we are reviving the engineering profession, which collapsed 30 years ago. That means there is hope.”

And the ambition is that in five years, Mogadishu will not only be a modern city but also a model post-conflict reconstruction.

“I believe Mogadishu is a different city compared to the 1990s; the city has changed to a new style, and Mogadishu’s development is in line with the new world,” says Ms Omar.

“When I walk through the streets and see buildings I helped construct, I feel proud. We are not just building structures; we are building hope.”

Ms Abdi agrees, adding: “We are proving that women can not only design buildings but also lead projects and shape the city.”

Why Trusted Data Is Key to Transformational AI-Driven CX

Published

31 minutes ago

September 11, 2025

Jessica Keehn

From boardrooms to shop floors, companies are moving quickly to embed AI into their operations. The goals are clear: drive efficiencies, reduce costs, and deliver smarter, faster, more personal customer experiences.

This makes a lot of sense given that today 89% of businesses are expected to compete primarily on CX. However, the results aren’t always matching the hype.

A recent Gartner study found that while enterprise AI adoption is rising, real impact is often elusive. The reason? Many businesses are still operating with disconnected systems and disjointed data. Without a strong foundation, AI can’t deliver what it promises.

Siloed systems aren’t just a technology problem—they’re a business barrier.

The CX Disconnect: When Fragmentation Undermines Intelligence

Too many organizations still rely on a patchwork of tools for customer experience, supply chain, finance, and HR. While these point solutions solve individual challenges, they create friction and disconnect across the business. In an AI-powered world, friction is the enemy.

AI thrives on complete, clean, and contextualized data to function effectively. If your marketing, sales, service, and fulfillment teams cannot see the same data in real time, or trust that it’s accurate, your AI strategy will not be set up to succeed.

With the best intentions to embrace AI in an effort to achieve incredible efficiency, instead, customers will still lose valuable time on manual integration, inconsistent customer experiences, and AI outputs that are only as good as the (fragmented) data feeding them. The delightful experience aspirations turn into trust lost and frustration all around.

Modular Innovation, Meet Enterprise Intelligence

SAP has reimagined enterprise management with SAP Business Suite, representing a fundamental shift from traditional ERP systems to a modular, composable architecture that integrates AI, data, and applications into a unified platform.

Grounded in harmonized, semantically rich data, this architecture allows businesses to make sense of data that has traditionally been scattered across systems and trapped in silos, so AI has the comprehensive data it needs to quickly generate meaningful insights.

SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) with native integration of SAP Databricks, serves as a data backbone for business AI. It seamlessly connects all SAP data and third-party data and provides integrated governance to enable real-time AI-driven decision making.

Companies do not lose precious time locating and preparing data for AI. AI systems work on trusted, contextualized data, not just generic data. This produces accurate, reliable, and actionable AI recommendations that enable organizations to scale AI innovation rapidly across business domains.

SAP BDC is the foundation for Joule, SAP’s AI copilot that acts as an intelligent orchestrator across the entire business suite. SAP BDC ensures that Joule has structured business context for natural language processing and that its outputs are accurate so that Joule can provide always-on assistance to break down silos between business operations.

For example, when a customer service or sales representative handles a complex order issue, Joule can:

Check real-time supply chain constraints

Respond to RFPs faster
Personalize the response by pulling in relevant customer history from CRM systems
Speed response with automated case routing and research

The results are faster resolutions, happier customers, empowered employees, and incredible business outcomes with less effort and overhead.

CX + AI + ERP = Real Results

Integrating CX AI with core ERP systems enables end-to-end process optimization that was previously impossible with fragmented systems. When CX systems connect natively to back-office systems, organizations gain:

Real-time personalization powered by operational data
Intelligent workflows that prioritize high-value customers
Predictive insights that help teams act before issues arise

The numbers speak for themselves. According to an Enterprise Strategy Group report, customers using this approach reported these benefits:

Up to 60% reduction in the number of issues service and support teams deal with due to fewer manual errors, automated self-service support functions, automated self-service, and AI chatbots
25% to 50% improvement in time to resolution for issues that did require service or support resources
25% to 70% improvement in productivity of digital marketing and customer operations teams
50% to 90% improvements in sales team productivity by offloading smaller transactional sales, faster quote generation, and streamlined order management
20% to 40% increase in productivity of business operations due to less time spent on invoices, payments, shipments, and returns and more informed decision-making

This is not just incremental change; it’s enterprise transformation, driven by customer needs and powered by AI.

The Future of Intelligent Enterprise Operations

Embedded CX AI within a composable business suite represents a bright future that takes the possibility of AI and makes it a reality.

Businesses can seamlessly orchestrate intelligence across all functions, delivering experiences that feel effortless to customers while optimizing operations behind the scenes.
Artificial intelligence won’t just automate individual tasks, but also orchestrate entire business ecosystems to deliver superior outcomes.
Maintaining enterprise-grade reliability and enabling modular innovation will allow organizations to adapt to changing market conditions while creating competitive advantages.

With the rise of AI, businesses face a pivotal moment in time. Taking advantage of all that technology has to offer demands more than point solutions and departmental optimizations; it requires unified platforms, complete clean underlying data, and a clear unified strategy.

Jessica Keehn is chief marketing officer of SAP Customer Experience.

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Business

AI Stocks to Watch, According to Fund Manager Crushing the S&P 500

Published

2 hours ago

September 11, 2025

Max Adams

Before his portfolio management days, Denny Fish worked as a sales manager at Oracle. He saw the incredible demand for its software products as the dot-com boom flourished, an experience that would later inform his mindset as an investor: What was the next revolutionary idea he could get ahead of?

“I watched the internet boom, I had a front row seat because I was at Oracle and we were in the eye of the storm,” Fish said. “So it shaped my investment philosophy of, ‘Wow, always be looking for that big idea.'”

He continued: “Because the big idea is gonna express itself in a way that nobody can appreciate over multiple years and when you get behind that big idea, don’t let anybody shake you out of it because that’s what’s called a power law in technology investing.”

Two decades later, Fish was perfectly positioned for the AI boom. As a co-manager of the Janus Henderson Global Technology and Innovation Fund (JAGTX), his top holdings are a who’s who in the AI ecosystem: Nvidia, Microsoft, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Broadcom. Those four names alone, all of which he’s held for more than a year and a half, make up 42% of JAGTX.

The impressive lineup has led to a banner few years for Fish. Since the October 2022 lows, his fund is up 136%, crushing the S&P 500’s 81% surge.

Today, Fish still thinks AI is the big idea to get behind. But when asked which stocks he’s most bullish on right now, three out of the four were companies outside his top six holdings in the 25-stock fund.

4 stocks Fish likes right now

The first firm Fish listed — and the one that is among his largest holdings — is Taiwan Semiconductor, as chip demand remains uber-strong. It’s the fund’s third-largest holding at 9.49%.

“If you’re a Broadcom or if you’re Nvidia, there’s only one place you want to go to get your chips manufactured, and that’s TSMC given their process, know-how, and the lead that they’ve created,” he said.

Next, he said Cadence (CDNS), an electronic design automation firm, is well-positioned for continued AI hardware demand. The stock is the fund’s eighth-biggest holding at 2.47%.

“It’s a global duopoly,” he said of Cadence and its competitor, Synopsis. “They have dominant market positions, incredible returns on capital, and there are businesses that you can’t move forward with chip design without one of those two companies.”

Third, Fish is bullish on KLA (KLAC), which produces process control systems for semiconductor chips. The firm “has a very dominant position globally, in that swim lane for, for semiconductor capital equipment,” Fish said.

At 1.88%, it’s JAGTX’s thirteenth-largest holding.

Finally, Fish mentioned Mercado Libre (MELI), a Latin-American e-commerce platform with a fintech business that offers digital wallets, lending, payment solutions, and money transfers. Fish said he’s impressed with the company’s use of AI.

“They’re doing really unique things with AI through their entire portfolio to improve the customer experience and also improve their underwriting and their fintech business,” he said.

Mercado Libre is the fund’s seventh-largest holding at a 2.64% weighting.

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Business

Oracle’s sudden AI stardom is giving 1999 energy

Published

3 hours ago

September 11, 2025

Allison Morrow

A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

New York
—

Oracle, a large but generally sleepy cloud-computing company, just had an absolutely bonkers day on Wall Street.

The stock (ORCL) shot up more than 40% Wednesday morning, its largest single-day jump ever. It was such big leap that it minted Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison $100 billion in less than hour, making him the world’s richest person and bumping Elon Musk to second place.

The catalyst wasn’t a flashy product rollout or a surprise earnings beat — in fact, Oracle’s quarterly revenue and profit came in below Wall Street’s expectations Tuesday evening.

Instead, the fire came from Oracle’s outlook for the next few years, which, if it pans out, would cement the company as a power player in artificial intelligence. That’s a big “if,” though — especially given that the bulk of Oracle’s rosy outlook hinges on revenue from one major customer, the unprofitable OpenAI, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Oracle’s outlook is “so exuberant that if we’d gotten this sort of prediction from a less established company it might have been shrugged off as either a lie or a misplaced digit,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told me.

Here are the key things powering Oracle’s stock at a clip it hasn’t experienced since the late-90s dot-com-bubble era, when it rose nearly 600% in the span of a year before falling back to earth by 2022:

Oracle’s CEO, Safra Catz, said the company’s cloud infrastructure revenue would grow 77% to $18 billion by the end of May 2026. But that’s not all: It projects that revenue to hit $144 billion by 2030.
Catz said Oracle had signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers, giving the company $455 billion in “outstanding contract revenue” that it expects to collect on. That metric is up 359% from last year.

Oracle, which sells database software, has somewhat quietly ingratiated itself to investors in the AI gold rush this year by securing deals with AI companies hungry for computing capacity. (If semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA) is the “picks and shovels” play of the current frenzy, think of Oracle as the Levi Strauss play — it’s not mining the gold, just providing durable trousers.) And now it’s making its debut as a force to be reckoned with against rival cloud-storage providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

If Oracle’s head-spinning projections seem too good to be true, well, that’s all part of the fun-house mirror effect of the generative AI bubble (yes, I said “bubble”). Because for any of Oracle’s future projections to make sense, its AI customers, including OpenAI, have to make, like, a lot of money — something the ChatGPT maker has shown no clear path to doing anytime soon. (The Information reported last week that OpenAI’s projected cash burn this year through 2029 will hit $115 billion — about $80 billion higher than the company previously expected.)

Like other big tech names, Oracle is betting much of its future on the promise that demand for computing capacity will keep going up as generative AI ushers in some kind of as-yet-undefined revolution. So tech companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build out the data centers — giant, energy-sucking buildings full of computer servers — to ensure the US has the technical infrastructure to deliver all of the AI magic.

That gamble on infrastructure is so massive it actually eclipsed consumer spending this year as the main driver of GDP growth, according to Renaissance Macro Research.

“This data center buildout continues to be a major support to the US economy… so we of course hope that Larry Ellison is right and that this massive buildout is sustainable,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of One Point BFG Wealth Partners, said in a note Wednesday.

But Boockvar also sounded a note of caution: “While Oracle just knocked the cover off the ball, when I see one day market cap increases of such epic proportions, I can’t not think of what I witnessed in 1999.”

(Ahem, 1999 being the start of the dot-com crash.)

Oracle’s capital expenditures are “truly extraordinary,” at $35 billion for this fiscal year, which is about 52% of revenue, Boockvar notes. In 2024, it was 13% of the company’s revenue. “We’ve never seen such capital intensity from these previously large-free-cash-flow-generating businesses.”

In other words, Oracle is a huge company, and it’s never spent money like this ever before.

The risk here, of course, is that Oracle’s big customer, OpenAI, doesn’t deliver.

Generative AI, the engine of ChatGPT, is one of those rare technologies that manages to get less marketable over time. The more many regular people encounter AI in their lives, the more they come to associate it with “slop” on their Facebook feeds. Chatbots cannot reliably respond to human beings’ queries, and they have a pesky tendency of dragging said humans into delusional, at times deadly, mental spirals.

It isn’t completely useless, to be sure, but AI’s proponents have had an extremely difficult time building an application that’s lived up to their own hype (nor, certainly, has any of it lived up to the lofty valuations propping up American tech companies).

Without a game-changing tech update that either drastically lowers its costs or dramatically boosts its profits, OpenAI may be toast. And that presents a systemic risk to not just Oracle, in particular, but to the tech sector more broadly.

If Oracle can stick the landing, Sosnick said, “then by all means, this rally is well-deserved.”

“Yet you are correct in pointing out the risks inherent in the market’s complete revaluation of Oracle… Not only are Oracle stockholders crucially dependent upon the company meeting its guidance, but the broader market is, too.”

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