Experts weigh economic potential of new-age tech
On its first day the Smart Cities and Industry 4.0 Summit discussed the power of IoT combinedwith AI and its impact on businesses
Times News Service
MUSCAT: Around 30 speakers and experts from different international, local, public and private entities are taking part in a twoday summit being held in Oman to discuss how smart cities can help further develop the Sultanate’s economy.
Titled the Smart Cities and Industry 4.0 Summit, it began yesterday as part of the Comex exhibition, and featured live sessions and workshops on current technology topics, such as Block Chain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities, and cybersecurity.
Inaugurated under the patronage of Tareq Sulaiman Al Farsi, CEO of Al Raffd Fund, and in the presence of Dr Salim Bin Sultan Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA, the summit began by discussing how AI and the Internet of Things could help advance the national economy, featuring a series of special panel discussions around key topics, exploring the potential of the two technologies across various industries in Oman.
Comex 2019 Smart Cities and Industry 4.0 summit aims to highlight how smart cities are the key to achieving a sustainable, global competitive edge and ensuring a more inclusive and better quality of life for citizens. The components of Industry 4.0 - Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, cyber-physical systems and cognitive computing- also overlap with the components of smart cities, hence an integrated and holistic discussion on these aspects is currently imperative.
The summit opened with a keynote address by Ibrahim Talib Al Wardi, Director General of eServices at ITA, in which he confirmed that Oman is fully ready for Smart Cities’ investments with national priority being given to plan, build and develop sustainable cities as part of Oman Vision 2040. He also added: “Oman’s achievements in digital transformation aim to turn Oman into a sustainable knowledge community through leveraging ICT to enhance government services, enrich the business sector and empower individuals.”
Regarding IoT smart solutions, Dr. Riyadh Moosa, CEO of iNNOVATEQ, Oman, presented ‘Nibras’, an Omani solution that has been developed in Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) over the last 10 years to deploy the concept of Exceptional Based Surveillance for Petroleum asset management. ‘Nibras’ has become the nerve centre of PDO, delivering world-class operational efficiency and huge business value.
The first day of presentations discussed the power of IoT combined with AI, its impact on business, digital industrial transformation and machine learning; examined convergence between IoT and other technologies; the benefits and challenges of using AI and methods to unblock the real potential of the 4th Industrial Revolution. It also highlighted cross-industry cases of digitally transformed enterprises, successful businesses applying digital solutions, real digital customer experiences and newly developed applications in Industry 4.0.
The second day of the Summit is going on today and as the e.oman pavilion participation activities conclude, visitors can still enjoy the retail section of the exhibition.