isabelle nijs

After COVID, Belgian small business began to bloom

After COVID, Belgian small business began to bloom

Isabelle Nijs runs a hair salon in Begijnendijk, Belgium, about an hour’s drive to the northeast of Brussels. Nijs struggled to keep her business going through the pandemic during lockdowns and the lack of customers that brought. Rents and insurance premiums continued going up, but she didn’t get any financial support to meet the rising costs. Now, with people coming out of COVID restrictions, her business has begun to bloom … only to be impacted yet again, this time by the war in Ukraine. Now, she’s also dealing with supply chain issues, with prices going up and quality going down, not to mention long wait times.

Sponsored posts

Microsoft and HUMAIN advance AI adoption across the Arabic-speaking world

Microsoft and Saudi Arabia-based HUMAIN announced a long-term strategic collaboration to expand access to Arabic-language AI capabilities. Plans include bringing HUMAIN's ALLAM models to Microsoft Foundry and the Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem, while combined engineering teams work directly with organizations to accelerate enterprise AI deployment and adoption. The collaboration aims to strengthen Arabic-language AI innovation, helping organizations build and deploy AI solutions tailored to regional business and productivity needs while expanding access to advanced AI tools across the Middle East and beyond. Read the full announcement here.