Gitex to play key role in digital shift
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, 5G, ROBOTICS, VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY TO STEAL LIMELIGHT AT TECH WEEK
More than 100,000 tech experts are expected to converge on Dubai to see the emerging technologies showcased at the 38th Gitex Technology Week, which starts today.
The five-day event — open to trade and business visitors only — is expected to attract more than 4,500 exhibitors from more than 100 countries.
The event will focus on artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, robotics, virtual and augmented reality, under the tagline ‘Experience Future Urbanism’, apart from the dedicated event for start-ups — Gitex Future Stars.
Trixie LohMirmand, senior vice-president for events management at Dubai World Trade Centre, said that more than 200 government entities are taking part and out of that, 80 per cent are from the UAE.
Twenty-four federal entities under the umbrella of the UAE mGovernment will showcase their achievements in using technology to facilitate the provision of government services and achieve customer happiness, upholding the principle of “one government and distinctive services”.
Thirty-six government departments from Sharjah will showcase the Sharjah Map for Digital Transformation Project.
Connected journey
Gitex’s eight conference verticals will provide more than 290 hours of expert-led seminars, including those by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Wanli Min, chief machine intelligence scientist at Alibaba; Brian McBride of Amazon; Cassie Kozyrkov, Google’s chief decision scientist; Joe Federer of Reddit; Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for Global Innovation Policy and Communications; Rami Sarieddine, senior technology evangelist at Microsoft; and Neal Cross, chief innovation officer at DBS Bank, Singapore.
Arun Khehar, senior vicepresident for business applications at Oracle ECEMA, said digital transformation spending across the Middle East, Africa and Turkey region is expected to surpass $32 billion (Dh117 billion) by 2021 as companies are now looking to drive change.
“We will highlight the power of AI. We plan to take customers through a connected journey at our stand, based on our secure intelligent platform for digital business, which is driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI), and supported by five pillars: reinvent the network; embrace a multicloud world; unlock the power of data; employee and customer experience; security is foundational and everywhere. We will also be unveiling our latest suite of technologies to support the Middle East’s path to digital transformation,” said Shukri Eid, managing director for East Region at Cisco Middle East.
Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council of India is fielding over 35 Indian ICT companies, as the UAE continues to be the top export destination followed by Saudi Arabia.
At Gitex Future Stars, a lot of cash prizes are up for grabs for start-ups. The Supernova Challenge offers a prize pool of $180,000, including $100,000 for best start-up; the inaugural Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) Space Innovation Challenge will reward the world’s best space travel startup a $60,000 top prize, incubation with MBRSC and an agreement for potential future work with both MBRSC and the UAE Space Agency; Accenture Innovation Awards will also grant one winning start-up an all-expenses-paid trip to Silicon Valley; Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) Futurism Pitch calls travel and tourism wave-makers to impress a Dubai Tourism panel to bag over $50,000 in prizes across four categories.